


Machine Mother

by MorganOfTheFey



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Asexual Character, BDSM, Best Friends, Dom/sub, F/M, Friends to Lovers, I'll add more tags as we get to it, Slow Burn, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:46:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 98,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6576280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganOfTheFey/pseuds/MorganOfTheFey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Security protocols wiped out most of what Deacon knows about the Institute after he escaped, but he remembers there’s a vault up north with something important inside. When Vault 111 opens and a very pissed off Anna Howard emerges, he drops everything to go stake her out. The ex-mercenary turned housewife seems to have a sixth sense for seeing through his disguises, and Deacon has plenty of secrets of his own, yet the two team up to get back her son. But will their partnership survive finding out Shaun wasn’t the Institute’s only project?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> First few disclaimers first! Deacon is the "trans character" I tagged, not Anna. See the end notes for further clarification. Anna is a little bit closer to demi-graysexual, as toward the very end, she'll develop a slight sexual attraction to Deacon, but that's still on the asexual scale and I promise it won't be presented as a "she's fixed!" sort of thing. Before all of that though, there's going to be some ... platonic BDSM? idk, Deacon and Anna are both emotionally stunted babies who can't admit their feelings. So while it's a slow burn in terms of romance, there's still going to be some sweet bonding and Super Best Friends partnership and even a bit of sexy times to tide you over.
> 
> This is also going to be really long. Like, seriously. I'm using this as practice for writing my third novel, which will have a similar relationship dynamic between the main characters, so it's going to be actual novel length. Also, for this reason, I'd really appreciate feedback on how I'm handling Anna and Deacon's relationship!
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! <3

_Sixty years ago..._

DC-0N watches the human baby pick up a block and blow spit bubbles at it. The little boy hits the block against the floor, another block, and then the table. The toy happens to catch the edge of a square-shaped hole, and the boy pushes it in. The block falls through the hole and disappears. DC-0N automatically scans the baby's facial expression, comparing the look to the thousands of human faces in its internal database. Shock. Surprise. Dismay. DC-0N concludes the baby likely hadn't matched the block to the hole on purpose.

A female scientist steps forward regardless to reward the baby by picking him up, holding him for a few moments, then sets him back down. The baby only receives human touch when he correctly performs a task. One time they let DC-0N hold him, just to see if the baby would react different to being held by a synth. He'd grabbed DC-0N's hair and yanked on it, then squirmed around and drooled down the back of its neck. DC-0N still itches to hold him again, but a glass wall separates the synth, scientists, and two of the Directors from the test room.

Patrick finishes his conversation with another scientist and calls DC-0N over. It turns away from the baby and follows its creator back to their assigned lab. Patrick checks the monitors, but there's nothing new, as expected. DC-0N waits by Patrick's desk for any orders or questions.

“Shaun is progressing well,” Patrick says. “That should please the Directors. How did they look?”

DC-0N replays its memories of the meeting, analyzing the micro-expression of the two Directors present. “Director Adams was approving, bordering on smug. Director Davis was skeptical, but not displaying outright disapproval.”

Patrick nods and sorts through his papers. “Good, good. 'Not outright disapproval' is probably the best we'll get out of him. Maybe if I schedule my grant appeal for eight instead of ten, it'll be too early in the morning for him to …”

The scientist pauses and looks around with a huff. DC-0N quickly steps forward and tugs Patrick's tablet out from beneath a stack of books and papers, then hands it to him.

“Shit, thanks,” Patrick says absently. “Swear I'd lose my goddamn head if it weren't for you.”

DC-0N mentally browses through pictures, videos, and other pre-war popular culture references before selecting a phrase.

“That's why you pay me the big bucks, boss,” it jokes.

Patrick chuckles and ruffles the synth's hair as he passes by. DC-0N can't help but smile widely. Joke successfully executed. He waits quietly while Patrick checks the subject's vital stats on the tablet. Nothing ever changes, and it's not supposed to. The task is monotonous, but it also leaves him free to tinker on other pet projects. DC-0N observes Patrick as he works. The synth is designed to identify human moods and emotions based on a complex evaluation of body language, micro-expressions, and voice patterns, and Patrick's current readings indicate he's in a good mood.

“How did you use Shaun to make me?” DC-0N asks.

“You're a derivative, not a replica,” Patrick replies without looking up from the monitor. “We just needed a test subject with undamaged genes so we could see what they looked like.” He shrugs. “Once we had that, the possibilities were endless. Your DNA is actually a combination of several human strands, a bunch of sections recreated and spliced together.”

“So I'm not related to him?”

Patrick stops and looks up. DC-0N scans his face without thinking about it. He looks apprehensive. Sometimes he likes for it to ask questions, will even pose questions to it himself to test how well it's able to formulate a response. But sometimes DC-0N's artificial intelligence strays outside of the correct parameters and it accidentally thinks things it shouldn't.

“No,” Patrick says slowly. “Your genes were simply built in such a way that they're healthy, mimicking unirradiated genes. But none of the actual sequences that make up Shaun's DNA were copied into yours. On a genetic level, the two of you are unrelated.”

Then DC-0N's impulse to hold the baby remains unaccounted for. But it was designed to be personable, the first synth with built in “customer service,” as Patrick calls it. Since the baby is unable to converse or understand jokes, perhaps DC-0N's empathy designations have rerouted into an urge to touch instead.

“Anyway, no,” Patrick says with a shake of his head, dismissing the notion. “Any sort of cloning would be unacceptable. God knows I had to beg and bribe to get permission to make you as is.”

DC-0N knows not to interrupt Patrick once he’s gotten started, so it stays silent. It learns a lot of information by staying silent. Scientists will say all kinds of things while synths are listening, the same way they’d talk freely around a desk or a microwave.

Patrick rolls his eyes and mimics another scientist. “ _You can’t teach a synth jokes, you can’t make one that’s nice_. Artificial intelligence is going to evolve because that’s literally what it does, so we damn well better put ethical parameters in place while we can still—"

Patrick stops and glances around. DC-0N is the only other “person” in the room. While scientists may not think twice about talking in front of synths, the labs are equipped with cameras and listening devices that monitored every area for “security reasons.” While DC-0N has just recently learned the use of air quotes, they seem applicable here. Patrick looks worried, so the synth cuts in.

“Whoa, my bad,” DC-0N says. “Didn’t mean to get into all of that. I just thought I could help with Shaun if our organic material is similar."

That’s not technically a lie. It’s maybe even a little true. It just doesn’t include the synth’s strange impulse to hold the baby.

Patrick waves his hand to dismiss the concern. “Shaun’s progression is still on track, and my assignment is just to monitor Vault 111. Dr. Silcox oversees Project Revive."

“Not our department, got it,” DC-0N grins and shoots finger guns at Patrick.

“Ugh, is it still doing that obnoxious finger pointing thing?” Dr. Silcox asks, hobbling into the room on his cane.

DC-0N drops its hands and looks away. Most of the older scientists have made their disapproval of a humanoid synth very clear, and they’re doubly critical of Patrick’s decision to give DC-0N a friendly user interface, lest it develop a _personality_. DC-0N knows Dr. Silcox is one of the most vocal of these scientists. Meanwhile, Patrick’s facial expression shifts. Affronted, DC-0N decides.

“They’re called finger _guns_ ,” Patrick says, “and they were a staple of early twenty-first century pre-war comedy, according to the research I’ve gathered from—"

“Well thank God that died out,” Dr. Silcox mutters.

“I’m sure you’re on your way too,” DC-0N cheerfully replies.

Dr. Silcox’s gaze snaps over. “What was that, _synth_?"

DC-0N carefully arranges its face to a look of confusion. “Aren’t you eager to go to the afterlife? You have a soul, so you can go to heaven, and I hear it’s pretty great. That’s the difference between humans and synths, right?"

Patrick gives a look that the synth has dubbed Don’t Push It, then says, “Yes, but it’s rude to comment on a human’s age. Don’t do it again."

“Yes, sir,” DC-0N says.

“It sounds smarmy,” Dr. Silcox complains. “That’s what happens when you give synths a sense of humor, they sound smarmy."

“Yes, I’m tinkering on that now,” Patrick says without making much effort to sound sincere. “Is there something I can help you with, doctor?"

“How is Subject Omega?” Dr. Silcox brushes past Patrick to examine the monitor without waiting for an answer. “No abnormalities?"

Patrick’s jaw tightens for a fraction of a second, which DC-0N notes. “No, Dr. Silcox. Just like every other day, her vitals remain—"

“Intrusions!” Dr. Silcox shoves his finger in Patrick’s face. “Those filthy wastelanders are always breaking into Vaults, intruding, looting technology they can’t even begin to understand with their irradiated—"

DC-0N steps forward to diffuse the situation. “Dr. Silcox?”

The synth raises its hands, palms up, as supplicating as it can appear.

“Why’s Subject Omega so important?” it asks innocently. "That was your original assignment, right?"

Dr Silcox loudly scoffs. “No. My assignment was Subject Chi, but that brute Kellog butchered him, so we had to resort to Subject Psi."

“Nathaniel and Shaun,” Patrick provides, at DC-0N’s genuine look of confusion. “The subjects were labeled according to the Greek alphabet, with the Howard family at the end of the line. Which actually helped them survive, since the life support failed in the north rooms first, continuing on down to—"

“To our last viable candidate, which Kellog promptly shot in the head,” Dr. Silcox interrupted. “I told the Committee they should have sent a courser. Outside contacts are completely unnecessary, but no one ever listens to me. So now all we have is a baby that can barely fit a square block in a square hole, without any pre-war memories or perspective. Bah!"

“What about …” DC-0N pauses for a moment, sure it’s about to ask a dumb question. “I mean, Anna Howard is still alive, right? Why not wake her up?"

Dr. Silcox’s lip curls back in a sneer. “And what perspective will she be able to give us? How to wash dishes? She’d likely go into hysterics, anyway. Subject Omega is for backup genetic harvesting purposes only."

Patrick begins to irritably click his pen in rapid succession. “Considering she worked as a welder to contribute to the war effort, I think—"

“Would you stop with that incessant noise?” Dr. Silcox asks without regard to what Patrick is saying. “By my stars and garters, with habits like that it’s no wonder you created the Institute’s most obnoxious synth."

DC-0N looks down at its feet. It doesn’t understand why so many people think it's annoying when all it ever does is try to be friendly and make them laugh.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Patrick repeats in a tight voice.

Dr. Silcox glances around the lab with a critical eye, then straightens an errant book on Patrick’s desk. “No, all seems to be in order. Alert me if there are any intrusions."

Patrick grits out an affirmative and Dr. Silcox hobbles back out of the lab. As soon as the older scientist leaves, Patrick grabs the book and throws it at the wall. DC-0N flinches at the sound. Patrick leans over the desk for a moment, his head bowed.

“You’re not obnoxious,” he finally says, looking up at DC-0N.

The synth doesn’t return his gaze, keeping its eyes firmly locked on its feet. Patrick crosses the distance between them and cups DC-0N’s cheeks to make it look at him.

“You are my proudest accomplishment, all right?” he says.

DC-0N’s eyes prickle, and then its cheeks feel wet. It scrunches up its face and blinks. Patrick’s eyes widen—worry, concern, fear?—and then he shifts to make sure his body is in-between the synth’s face and the cameras.

“Shh, shh.” He quickly wipes away the evidence.

“Am I—" DC-0N’s voice cracks and it sniffles. “Am I malfunctioning?"

“Umm …” Patrick takes a deep breath. “Match your breathing to mine. In and out."

DC-0N nods and tries to obey the command.

“That is,” Patrick pauses to choose his words carefully, “an unexpected development, but it’s not necessarily wrong. I did design you to identify emotions, so—shit, it was probably only a matter of time before …"

“Am I fee—"

Patrick covers DC-0N’s mouth with his hand so the word can’t get out. _Feeling_.

“I designed you to identify and respond to human emotions,” Patrick says, his voice as serious as DC-0N has ever heard it. “So that you can better intuit our needs and act with a slightly greater degree of autonomy."

Patrick’s eyes bore into the synth’s own, willing it to understand. DC-0N hears the unsaid message. Synths aren’t supposed to _feel_ anything, and they sure as hell aren’t supposed to cry. DC-0N is meant to be a derivative of humans, not a replica.

“You had a short glitch for a moment, but that’s only to be expected with coding as complex as yours,” Patrick continues more calmly. “Why don’t you do something less strenuous on your processors?"

He leads DC-0N over to the chair in front of the monitor displaying a bird’s eye view of a room in Vault 111, and the synth obligingly sits down.

“Just look at this screen and let me know if anything happens,” Patrick says. “I’m going to work on my grant appeal so maybe one day I can get assigned to something other than watching this show where nothing ever happens."

DC-0N nods and clears its throat. “Sure thing, boss."

Patrick squeezes its shoulders. “All right, good. Yeah. Good."

He picks up his papers and moves over to another nearby desk. DC-0N dutifully stares at the screen, but it can feel him glancing over at it every so often. After half an hour, those glances lessen, then halt completely as Patrick loses himself in his work. DC-0N gets a bit lost too, studying the human woman frozen in the pod. It reaches out and presses the up arrow on the keyboard, and the camera zooms in. The synth looks over at Patrick, but he’s too busy to notice. A minute is all it needs to get the hang of turning and zooming the camera, and then it has an up close look at Subject Omega's face.

She isn’t pretty. DC-0N thought all pre-war women were supposed to be pretty, like in the magazines, but then it supposes the magazines wouldn't bother showing the ugly ones. Which is a shame, because Anna Howard is … interesting. Her jawline is firm and square, and her chin is too wide to end in the dainty point the magazine women have. DC-0N can’t tell for sure past the frost clouding up the window of the pod, but her nose looks bumpy somehow. One time a courser came back with a nose like that and the medics called it broken.

Her expression is most interesting though. DC-0N compares her face to a couple thousand other examples of human expressions, but none of them match. The only thing that comes close is one of the synth’s own memories. Another department sometimes produces synthetic animals, and one time DC-0N had seen a scientist kick one of the dogs to see if it would react like a natural dog. The dog whimpered and curled in on itself, but a few kicks later, its snout twisted up in a snarl and it bit the scientist kicking it.

“Won’t she be mad?” DC-0N asks.

Patrick starts at the sudden question, and swivels around in his chair to blink at the synth. “Who?"

“Subject Omega,” it says. “Is she going to be mad when she wakes up?"

Patrick shrugs. “Well, Dr. Silcox probably won’t have her woken up, and we rewired the Vault to power her life support. What would she be mad about anyway?"

DC-0N stares at Patrick, once again certain it’s stating the obvious. “Uh, well her husband’s kicked it and her baby’s gone. Aren’t humans, like, protective of their young, the same as animals?"

“Oh.” Patrick blinks again. “Huh. Well … I’m not sure if the Committee took that into consideration. But yeah, no, I don’t think it’ll be a problem. You heard Dr. Feelcocks, she’s just a backup, not actually part of Project Revive. Don’t worry about it."

Patrick swivels back around to return to his work, and DC-0N turns back to the monitor. Anna Howard, female, frozen at age 38 in 2077. Weighs 236 pounds, height of 6’ 2”. Excellent cholesterol, blood pressure, and healthy lungs. The simulated diagram of her body shows a layer of body fat covering her stomach and thighs, but with solid muscle underneath. Aside from her head and joints, there isn’t a single spot on her body that’s not shaded in to indicate muscle mass.

DC-0N wonders at her body’s ability to recreate another human being. The synth has seen illustrated diagrams of human women, their stomachs bisected to show tiny bodies curled up inside. All their organs get smushed to the side, shoved up underneath their ribs.

And then the baby has to come out. The scientists weren’t so eager to explain that process, but DC-0N figured out the gist of it from its database of pre-war popular culture references. The synth understood why the scientists didn’t want to discuss the subject, if its own idea of the event was at all accurate.

At least DC-0N won’t ever have to worry about that. It’s vaguely aware that the humans designated male have floppy dangling bits while the female designated humans have soft inside bits, but the area between the synth’s legs is smooth and hairless, like the dolls some of the child humans play with.

But DC-0N is still curious about the parts, the process, the babies. He’ll never—it. DC-0N stops _its_ thought process and forces _itself_ to use the correct pronoun. _It_ , not he or him. Patrick designed the synth to have masculine characteristics, and many of the scientists often called it a “he” by accident. DC-0N has already malfunctioned once today, and it doesn’t want to upset its creator further by self-reporting yet another malfunction. It will simply have to try harder to think within the accepted parameters.

So the synth turns its attention back to Subject Omega.

“What did welders do?” DC-0N asks.

“They did engineering stuff,” Patrick says, waving his hand vaguely. “Welding metals parts to each other with a blowtorch. Like, planes and tanks and shit. Actually putting the physical pieces together with um … like, their hands, I guess."

“So she’s probably really strong, right?"

“Oh yeah. Nathaniel’s body was rotted on the inside from chems, but Anna is the perfect specimen on pre-war fitness. It’s not her fault Dr. Feelcocks is a sexist asshole."

DC-0N stares at Subject Omega and thinks maybe the Committee should have taken into consideration that a very strong, very pissed off woman who knows how to build tanks might be kind of upset about waking up to find her husband dead and baby gone.

Maybe Dr. Silcox was right, and she shouldn’t be woken up.

For their sake.


	2. Cry No Mississippi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Anna Howard. She's touch repulsed, very angry, and enjoys fist fighting deathclaws.
> 
> Meet Deacon. He's a cocksucking son of a bitch who likes snooping in other people's vaults.
> 
> Play nice you two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, so trigger warning stuff here! I'm putting the "graphic depictions of violence" warning to good use in this chapter because, as stated above, Anna's idea of a fun time is duking it out with a deathclaw.
> 
> also, this fic uses a darker version of pre-war culture than what's directly expressed in the fallout verse. basically, the world continued to socially progress until approx 2020s and then began a regression from conservative backlash until things reached near-dystopian levels. it is canon that there was a huge gap between rich / poor, extremely high inflation, and riots across the country about food, necessities, etc and I think there would be very strong social issues in that sort of environment too. so the world Anna is coming out of is blatantly sexist, segregated, and homophobic. occasionally, that will be referenced in the story (ie, Anna thinking or talking about how different things were) but I'm trying to keep this fic a safe space where none of that bullshit is going on in 2287. I've edited out a few lines from when I first posted this chapter to reflect that.
> 
>  **aura** , noun - an electromagnetic field around a person's body that protects you from low level radiation, ie: cell phones, microwaves, computers. people who are "allergic to technology" have weak or no auras and thus no protection, so this low level radiation makes them sick.
> 
> (see end notes for more on this)

Anna pries her way out of the cryogenic pod, the muscles of her arms straining as she struggles to push the metal door far back enough for her to get free. The metal bends with a screech as she shoulders her way out. The gunshot still echoes in her ears, along with the ghost of Shaun’s cries. Shaun never cries, he only makes tiny whimpering noises. He’s a very quiet baby, but he was crying, the man with an aura the color of red-dirt mud made her baby _cry._

Incidentally, he also shot Nate.

Anna hits the button to open her husband’s pod. She gives his neck a cursory check to be sure he’s dead. The blood and brain matter splattered across the back of the pod seems fresh, but the whole point of these pods is apparently to preserve, not cleanse of radiation. The man with the muddy aura could have been here five minutes ago or five years. Maybe longer.

She hits the button again to seal the pod, then moves on. Locate the man, kill him, get back her baby. Those are the next three steps she needs to take. Everything else is irrelevant. It doesn’t occur to her to check the other pods for survivors. She does check the terminals for any information that might give her a lead on the man. The reports of life support system failures are quickly skimmed and clicked through, then dropped from her mind as irrelevant. An interesting piece of information does catch her eye though. The security cameras in the Vault were broadcasting at some point. The files with the dates and signal are corrupted.

Anna leaves the room behind. She scans the hallway for shimmers of the man’s aura. Anything he might have touched. Auras rubbed off on objects, but especially on objects of sentimental value. Nothing in the Vault has any sort of aura. Either the man didn’t touch anything or no one has been in here for a long time. All it would take is one slip up though. She’ll be able to spot that aura anywhere. He’s a dead man now.

More investigating reveals roaches big enough to punch, and she gladly takes out her fury on them. Enough time must have passed for regular roaches to mutate into these larger versions. She finds a gun next, and a couple boxes of ammo from a nearby locker. Her hand feels more natural with the weight of a gun in it. All she wanted was to settle down in a nice suburb and raise a family. The mafia, the mercenary work, the killing—she’d left that all behind so her family could be safe.

She should have known karma wouldn’t let her go that easily.

*******

“Deacon, you cocksucking son of a bitch!“

The man in question turns around with a smirk and his palms clearly on display. He doesn’t refute either of those accusations, as they’re both fairly accurate assessments.

“Let me buy you a drink,” the other man offers. “I got good news!”

“You always start out good news like that?” Deacon asks.

His friend claps him on the back. “I do when I’m meeting a cocksucking son of a bitch.“ 

“Fair enough.” Deacon falls in line to walk along with him. “You wanna give me a hint about this news, Jimbo?” 

“Ah, fuck off. You’ll hear it when you hear it.“

So it’s important, the kind of shit neither of them want to discuss out on the street. Deacon banters with the man as they head for what passes as a bar in this settlement, and they get a table in the back. Jim buys them both a beer and orders Deacon a shot. He raises an eyebrow behind his sunglasses at that. 

“This news something I need to brace myself for?” he asks. 

Jim shrugs. “I dunno what the fuck goes on behind those shades. You might love this, might be terrified, might swoon right there on that bench.” 

“I thought you said you had good news.“ 

“Oh yeah,” Jim agrees. “I got fucking great news. That shit job of mine? Done." 

Deacon reconsiders the need for the shot. If Jim is talking about what he thinks his friend is talking about … 

_Subject Omega is only for—not going to ever wake—don’t worry about it._

The memories are short flashes, like a damaged holotape skipping through seconds of a scene. Goddamn security protocols erased nearly everything the second he’d stepped foot on the surface, and the mind wipe before that—Deacon mentally shakes it off and thanks the serving girl who sets down their drinks. He pulls the shot closer and looks Jim over. Excitement. Relief. Genuine happiness.

“Day after day of staring at a goddamn hole in the ground.” Jim takes a long pull of beer. “Not shit ever happening. Then—holy fuck, man. You ain’t even going to believe me.”

“Try me,” Deacon says softly.

Jim pauses and blinks at his friend. It’s not often that Deacon gets serious, and it’s even less often that he allows someone to see him get serious.

“Someone came out,” Jim all but whispers. “I didn’t follow her because—shit, like tracking a deathclaw. Terrified the wind would shift and she’d … I don’t even know, man. She’s big and she’s pissed. I hauled ass down here right away.” 

“Describe her,” Deacon says.

Jim drinks again before answering. “Big. Tall and muscular. Looks like a human fucking tank, ugly as a molerat’s ass. Gotta be at least six feet.”

“Six foot two,” Deacon murmurs. 

“You know her?“

“Of her.” 

Deacon lifts the shot up and considers it. Jim is quiet for a moment before he continues.

“Probably about two fifty, maybe mid thirties?” he guesses. “Has a white scar on her left cheek, that’ll be easy to spot. Looks like a chemical burn or something.“

Another memory flash hits Deacon. The woman’s face, frost dusting her cheeks, lips pulled back in a snarl. It’s her, it’s really fucking her. He doesn’t know how he remembers her or how he knew there was a Vault up north. Dez is the only leader he’s ever told about this pet project, putting a tourist on watch for a vault no one can get into. He has no explanation for it, nothing other than a gut feeling that this is the most important thing he’s ever done.

“Which direction was she headed?” Deacon asks.

“Southeast. Probably hit Concord first.”

Deacon takes the shot and stands up. Time to meet Anna Howard.

*******

Anna kills the raiders in Concord because they’re in her way. She doesn’t want to become involved in whatever messy drama is happening here. Keep moving, find survivors. The raiders technically count as survivors, but she doubts they’ll stop to kindly confirm Codsworth’s approximation of the date and give her directions to the next populated town. She deals with the first raider by snapping his neck before he even knows she’s there. The next two she shoots from behind, both headshots. A man appears on the balcony of the museum and shouts for her help before she can move on.

“I’ve got an old woman and a group of settlers inside,” he calls down. “The raiders are almost through the door—help us, please!“

He ducks back into the building, and Anna thinks about leaving. It’s strange that he would shout to a woman for help. And she doesn’t want to stop. Her entire being is focused on nothing but _find Shaun_. Then she thinks of finding Shaun and taking him back to the empty neighborhood of crumbling houses, with only her and Codsworth to care for him. She’s unsure which of them is less able to show him real human emotion.

Since she’s considering walking away from the slaughter of several civilians, it’s probably her.

Anna eventually decides saving these people might yield basic information on the world she’s woken up in. She enters the museum, casually strolling into the main foyer. One raider turns around, and his eyes widen right before she puts a bullet between them. She can hear several more raiders searching the upper floors. One of them on her floor pops out of a side room to rush her with a combat knife. She catches his arm and twists his wrist around to drive the blade into his own stomach. Saved a bullet. He drops next to his friend at her feet. Anna takes a moment to look over their bodies as he gurgles out blood. The pipe pistol the first raider has is a piece of shit. She won’t dirty her hands with it. Takes the combat knife though, then pulls the pin out of a grenade clipped to the second raider’s belt.

The explosion rattles the wooden building as Anna makes her way through the side room exhibits. Her steps are silent when she emerges on the second floor. Two raiders are leaned over the bannister looking at the fiery remains of their friends. They’re arguing about who should go down to check it out. Anna sneaks up behind them, grabs the raider on the left by the back of his leg, and flips him over the railing. He hits the ground with a thud. The one of the right starts to turn around, but she boxes him in against the bannister and slits his throat with her knife. He joins his friend on the ground floor a moment later.

Anna allows her mind to wander as she clears the rest of the building. None of the raiders have discipline or training. Minimal threat. But the civilians on the top floor are another matter. The man who called for help had a pink aura, vibrating with adrenaline and fear. Yesterday, no man would call out to a woman for help. Certainly no one expected a woman to help kill raiders. Most of the housewives in her neighborhood couldn’t kill mice.

How much have things changed?

Anna arrives on the top floor splattered in blood and none of the civilians so much as flinch. She guesses things have changed a lot.

“Man, I don’t know who you are, but your timing’s impeccable,” the man with a pink aura says. “Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen.”

Anna takes note of the name, but doesn’t respond other than a curt nod. Preston smiles at her and holds out his hand to shake.

She hates being touched.

But things have changed.

Anna shakes his hand, and the white man standing next to him doesn't scoff or sneer. If Codsworth’s date is correct, these people may not have any idea things were ever different. She won’t be the one to reintroduce racism. “Ism”s like to twine together and sexism is next on the list. She’s reminded of that when the man in overalls speaks in a slow Southern drawl. Her hand twitches on the butt of the 10mm holstered at her waist.

“You got a name, ma’am?” he asks.

His aura is a clean brown, like polished wood. It almost matches the other man’s skin. The pink and brown of the two auras drift toward one another. These two men are friends. Anna’s own aura stays perfectly still. She knows hers doesn’t reach out for anyone else but her son.

“Anna,” she finally replies.

She doesn’t provide a last name. A beat of silence, but neither of them ask for one. She takes the quiet moment to look over the three others in the room. The old woman catches her eye first. A lavender haze drifts around the woman like smoke. Anna is the only one who sees it. But when the old woman looks at Anna, she must see something in her too.

“That’s Mama Murphey,” Preston says. “She claims to have the Sight.“

Anna turns and looks back at him.

“Some sort of future vision,” he continues. “Sometimes she says things about people like she knows them, but she’s harmless. The couple over there are the Longs, Marcy and Jun.”

Anna clenches her jaw. Leave. Leave. Leave. Things might have changed, but they can’t have changed enough for anything good to come from people knowing what she sees. If this woman is open about her Sight, then she must be a prisoner. But her aura doesn’t shy away from Preston. No one is afraid of him even though he’s obviously the leader. Emotions are hard for Anna, but she can damn well recognize fear and hierarchy when she sees them. None of that is here.

“A month ago, there were twenty of us,” Preston says in a quiet voice. “Yesterday, there were eight. Now we’re at five.“

Anna doesn’t understand why he’s telling her this. That information is irrelevant to her.

“Please,” he murmurs.

Oh. He’s trying to convince her. Appealing to her inner sympathies. All zero of them. She resists the urge to sigh. She didn’t want to get involved in whatever messy drama is happening here.

Preston clears his throat and speaks in a normal tone. “I appreciate what you’ve already done for us. But the leader of those raiders is going to be here soon, with reinforcements. We do have one idea though. Sturges?”

The man in the overalls steps forward. “There’s a crashed verti-bird up on the roof. Old school. Pre-war.“

Pre-war? The war with China that had just started yesterday? Anna keeps her face blank even as this confirms what Codsworth told her. She’s woken up in the future. Which is now the present.

"Well, looks like one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody,” Sturges tells her. "We’re talking a full suit of cherry T-45 Power Armor. Military issue.”

Now this man is speaking language Anna understands. She’s always wanted to take one of those babies for a joyride. With a suit like that, she can mow down anything standing between her and the man with the muddy aura.

“Хорошо.“

Anna watches their auras carefully after she speaks. Facial expressions are also difficult for her, but auras don’t lie. Pink and brown waver a bit. Confusion, maybe. They don’t outright flinch back in fear or push forward in aggression. Yesterday, English was _the_ language. Anything else was disrespectful to this great nation.

“Do you speak English?” Preston asks slowly.

“Да.” Anna gives in to her impulse and sighs when they stare blankly at her. “Yes.” She turns her gaze specifically on Sturges. “Perfect.”

“Damn straight,” he agrees, moving on from the initial surprise. “Protection, with an added bonus. Get the suit, you can rip the minigun right off the vertibird. Do that, and those Raiders get an express ticket to Hell. You dig?”

His accent still makes her skin crawl. Unwanted memories. _Little lady, bless her heart, on your knees._

Anna nods silently.

“One hitch, though,” Sturges says. “The suit’s out of juice.”

Preston cuts in. “What you’ll need is an old pre-war F. C., a standardized Fusion Core. Your high-grade, long-term nuclear battery. Used by the military and some companies, way back when. And we know right where to find one …"

Thank God that even after the actual nuclear fucking apocalypse there was a man around to explain to her what a goddamn fusion core was. Not like she was alive when they were literally invented.

“You got all that, ma’am?” Sturges asks.

Anna snaps her attention back and replays the conversation in her head. Fusion core. Basement.

“Да.“

She leaves before either of them can reply. Retrieving the fusion core from the basement takes less than five minutes. No one tries to stop her when she heads for the roof. The group accepts that she’ll be the one to operate the Power Armor. The fact that she’s a woman is never even raised.

Cherry. Sturges called the suit “cherry.” Anna runs her hand over the smooth metal. She thinks back to when she was called cherry. Freshly escaped from the compound as a teen. Never handled money before, never seen a car go over twenty mph, never worn a skirt shorter than ankle-length. Young. Naive. Cherry.

Trying to survive in a world she didn’t understand.

Anna pops the core into the suit and climbs in herself. There’s a moment of. A moment of. Of suffocating. Trapped. Cold. Where’s Shaun? Where is—

The display on the inside of the helmet lights up. A mechanical voice gives her a status report. _Full power, limbs undamaged._ Anna closes her eyes. Opens them. She is fully operational. The feelings of panic are irrelevant. So she shuts them down. Eyes closed. Eyes open. Operational.

Anna rips the mini gun from the vertibird. Kill the raiders. Save the citizens. Make a home for Shaun. These are the next steps she needs to take. She steps off the edge of the roof and cracks the pavement when she hits the ground. Reinforcements for the Raiders have arrived. Bullets ping off her suit. The minigun growls as it spins up, and she can feel the heat from it through the gauntlets covering her hands. She prefers small caliber guns, blunt instruments, even a sword or two. But the minigun needs to be tested and these raiders have just volunteered themselves.

Three good sweeps of her minigun are enough to put them down. The leader is a bit smarter, letting his cronies die charging her while he hangs back. Anna drops the weigh of the minigun to leave her hands free. The leader lines up a shot at her head while she advances on him. The bullet leaves a small circle of cracks but ricochets off the reinforced glass. She raises her arms like a boxer blocking punches to shield from any more headshots.

Then something crawls out of the sewer. Anna grins when she sees the monster. It’s been Tuesday night amateur hour so far, but this big ugly fuck-o looks like a good time. She distantly hears Preston shout “Holy damn, it’s a deathclaw!” from the balcony.

Anna cracks her knuckles. Deathclaw. Хорошо.

She charges the beast while it rips the raider leader to shreds. All three of them hit the ground from the force of her body slam. She recovers first and bashes her metal fist into its face. The monster’s head cracks against the road, but that doesn’t even faze it. The deathclaw knocks her back with a swipe across her right shoulder. Bright red lights flash on the display. _Right limb injured._ The pain registers much in the same way for Anna. She’s aware of her body sending out warning signals, acknowledges the pain.

But she’s having too much fun for it to really hurt.

The deathclaw swipes at her again and Anna catches its claws with her left hand, then headbutts it. The glass display cracks a little more. A flash of red skims across the beast’s shoulder. The shot came from behind her. The balcony. Preston.

All this only makes the deathclaw angrier. Its tail snaps around, slamming into Anna’s side. The blow knocks her off balance enough that the monster gets its other set of claws into her chest and takes her to the ground. The side of helmet bounces off the pavement, rattling her head inside it. Glass nearly broken. One more hit and it will be.

Anna grabs the leader’s broken body and pulls it over her head right before the deathclaw tears into her. Its claws puncture through his back. His ribs snap in quick succession— _pop-pop-crunch_ as the front of her helmet finally shatters. Blood and glass push down into her face. The tip of a claw grazes her cheek. Anna draws her lips back in a snarl, mindless of the shards and guts pressing against her teeth. She kicks out, and her foot connects with the deathclaw’s stomach. It falls back with a whimper.

Anna pushes to her feet. Blood streams down her face, in her eyes. She can’t see. Listens instead. Preston shouting for her to get the minigun. Good thing he’s yelling that advice or she might be able to hear where the deathclaw is. She wants to press her advantage, hit the thing while it’s down. But that’s risky. Anna has never worried about risk before.

Shaun though. She can’t find Shaun if she’s mauled by a deathclaw.

Anna retreats. The minigun should be behind her, to the left. She blinks rapidly. Her metal hands are too clumsy to wipe the blood away. A snarl sounds in front of her. She raises her arms again to block right before the deathclaw crashes into her. Even with the Power Armor grounding her, the beast pushes her back. She takes a step backwards to compensate. Her foot hits the minigun and she trips. The deathclaw brings her to the ground. She keeps her left arm up to protect her exposed face while her right arm struggles to reach the gun.

 _Left limb damaged. Right limb damaged._ Anna gets her foot hooked around the gun and pushes it closer. The deathclaw gives one last shove at her arm. A gasket blows near her elbow and the metal drops down, limp. _Left limb unresponsive._ Anna kicks the gun a little bit nearer. The beast gets its claws into the chest plate of her suit. She can’t move the gun any closer. The front of her suit is being peeled away from her chest. She’s being opened like a can of cram.

_Torso critically damaged. Left limb unresponsive. Right limb damaged. Legs fully operational._

Ёб.

Legs it is then.

Anna’s feet catch the deathclaw right in its hips, and she uses the leverage to lift it up. The last time she played this game it was Shaun squealing and drooling above her.

She launches the monster back, sits up, and picks the minigun up one-handed. The deathclaw is back on its feet in nearly an instant. The gun is still spinning up in her right hand. She braces herself for the impact of claws before the gun can fire.

A red shot hits the monster in its eye instead. It tosses its head with a screech, shaking off the pain. That single moment of distraction gives Anna enough time to open fire. Bullets tear through the deathclaw’s weak underbelly. Anna doesn’t let up until the deathclaw collapses. She pushes herself to her feet and jams the barrel of the minigun into its smoking eye socket. The gun whirs to life. _Thud-thud-thud_. Now it’s a dead-claw.

No one appreciates Anna’s humor. Someone shouts behind her though, and she turns with the minigun instinctively hefted up to open fire on the new noise-making threat. The gun starts to spin up again. A flash of pink ducks down behind the balcony.

Pink.

Preston.

The civilians.

Anna takes her finger off the trigger. No bullets fire. She thinks the damage has already been done though. She’s suddenly conscious of how she must look. Blood covering her face. Pieces of gore stuck to the jagged edges of her helmet. Is she smiling? Anna presses her lips together and licks the blood off of her teeth. She might have been smiling. Adrenaline is still pumping through her, the thrill of fighting to the death and _winning_. Her baby is gone and she’s killed for the first time in three years and it’s so tempting to keep going. Not necessarily to kill these people, the civilians. To find another challenge, to find the Dead Man, to find–

Shaun. She can’t find Shaun like this, can’t hold him while wearing Power Armor. Life will go on after she finds Shaun. He’ll need to be nursed and held and cared for. The thirty-seven different parenting books she’s read are all very clear that babies need emotional care.

Anna drops the gun. Exits the mangled armor. Debates raising her hands above her head and settles for keeping them by her sides, palms clearly turned out.

“Preston,” she calls.

After a long moment, he calls back, “You good?”

“Yeah.“

He slowly stands up and peers down at her. There’s not much Anna can do to look non-threatening at six-foot-two and covered in blood.

“We’re not looking for trouble,” Preston tells her. “Just a place to settle down.”

“Sanctuary.” Anna stops and clears her throat. “Northwest. Houses still standing. River nearby. Old pre-war victory gardens.“

“Yeah?” His aura drifts toward her in interest. “You live there?”

Anna nods.

He smiles. “Want some company?“

*** * ***

“So there were these deathclaws, right? They had her surrounded, and she’s down, the Power Armor looks like scrap metal. But while those big idiots were clawing at the suit, she slipped out of it, army crawled over to the minigun without them noticing, and mowed them all down! Yeah, there were like, three of them.”

“Took out a whole fucking squad of raiders, swear on God! Most ‘em she, _crrrch_ , snapped their necks. Moved like a ghost, a fucking ghost, I tell ya. Others, she—all right, one of them? The leader, yeah? She lifted him up and snapped his spine. _Ca-chunk!_ Just broke him in-fucking-half right above her head.“

“Fucking calling herself the General of the goddamn Minutemen. They don’t do shit, and everyone knows it! Only reason she can say that is ‘cause all those assholes are dead. Ain’t no one left to argue. General. Fucking bullshit, son, I tell you what.”

Everyone and their brahmin has heard about her, but no one can seem to agree on what really went down in Concord. Must have been something big though to have left that kind of impression. Deacon collects what information he can, buying drinks, chatting people up. Doesn’t want to rush in blind, but he’s itching to finally find out just who this woman is. It takes him three days to get up that far north, pretty much where the map ends. Any further and it’s all just tundra, nuclear winter.

And the vault is open. It’s probably a trap, but he takes the lift down into it anyway. He’s been trying to get into Vault 111 for a couple of decades now, but it can only be opened from the outside with a security code. Or from the inside, apparently.

The Overseer’s terminal confirms this was the site of an experiment in cryogenics. _I can only what wonders our residents will get to witness. The notion of leaping forward in time—I almost wish I could join them and see the promise of our future realized._

The promise of our future realized. That poor stupid asshole.

Deacon moves on, checking the pods one at a time to be certain there aren’t anymore survivors. _Life support: Offline. Premature termination resulting in system failure_. All the residents listed on the terminal in the first room are accounted for, frozen and dead in their pods.

He knows the second room will be different the moment he steps inside. The door to the pod in the back is mangled and sticking out at a strange angle. When he gets closer, it looks like Anna had to push her way out, but he can’t imagine pushing against unyielding metal, forcing it to bend like that. He glances around for the terminal in this room and spots the man in the pod across the aisle. There’s frozen blood congealed against the back panel of his pod. Deacon hits the button to lift the door. It slowly raises to reveal Nathaniel Howard, a single perfect hole through his forehead and his brains splattered behind him. A ghoul in Goodneighbor gave Deacon that name, one of the old ones, pre-war. Not just a Vault Tech rep, but the Vault Tech rep that registered Anna and Nathaniel “Nate” Howard for Vault 111.

The nine month old baby Shaun is gone. No body, frozen or dead. Just gone.

Pain blooms in Deacon’s head like he’s just been pistol whipped. Fucking security protocols. Whatever happened to that little baby, the Institute must have had something to do with it to set off this reaction. Something he’s not allowed to remember.

So. What happened?

Someone with a security code opened the Vault from the outside. Nate Howard was shot in the head. Shaun Howard is missing. Anna Howard is out of the Vault and pissed about something.

Kidnapping? But the Institute’s never taken a child before, certainly not a baby. He can’t think of anyone else who would have access to a security code to a Vault or the resources to pull off something like this though.

Deacon closes Nate’s eyes before he closes the pod.

It’s as he’s leaving that he notices the security cameras. It was fucking sloppy not to notice them before. He’s too emotionally invested in whatever the hell this is, making dumb mistakes already. This room is the only one monitored, and the cameras look more like Institute tech than something truly pre-war. The nearby terminal they’re hooked up to tells him they’re currently broadcasting, but he can’t trace the signal. Even more interesting, the cameras have been used before. The file’s corrupted, but Deacon’s able to recover the dates, even if he can’t get that signal either. The cameras were previously active from 2227 to 2250. From the angle of them, it looks like they were focused on Anna’s pod.

Had the Institute been monitoring her? If so, why would they stop, thirty-seven years ago? What changed?

And who’s watching now?

*** * ***

There’s a man in her Vault. Anna has been waiting for this, although she hoped for the other man. She can’t see this one’s aura through the screen on her Pipboy, but he doesn’t have a scar across his face. Bald, average build, sunglasses hiding his eyes. It was only a matter of time before someone came snooping around though. The Dead Man returning to tie up loose ends. Whoever needed her as “the backup.” Looters who heard about a new settlement and an open vault.

Her first impulse is to catch the man. Torture him, find out who he is, kill him when she’s done. He flinches when he sees Nate’s corpse. It’s a delayed reaction though, several beats after he first saw it. Anna watches as he considers the body for a long moment, then shuts its eyes. She makes a small sound at that. Not really shame, but. Unease. _Something_ twists inside her stomach. For all she once loved Nate, she didn’t think to do that.

She decides to wait a little longer to see what this man does next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12:30 am is technically Saturday, so have a new chapter! I just want to make sure I don't forget to upload it tomorrow when I'm in undergraduate hell writing research papers.
> 
> anyway, about the aura thing. the beginning notes have the scientific stuff in a very oversimplified nutshell. if you want to get into the uwu hippy side of it, some people claim to see auras without the use of scientific equipment, and there are TONS of books about what your aura color means and how to cleanse your aura and where your chakras are, blah blah.
> 
> I personally think what I see is just my eyes fucking up because my vision is *incredibly* bad, and I can only see "auras" with my glasses on--that have a ridiculously high prescription. so I'm not exactly a believer. most of the aura stuff in here is exaggerated to fit the story, but it's still based on my own experiences, especially what colors companions' auras are. message me if you want to know more.
> 
> as always, comments are welcome and cherished <3


	3. Wrong Road Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon plays fetch with Dogmeat, and Anna plays stab with raiders. It's like tag, but with stabbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings here! again, putting the graphic violence tag to good use. nothing cruel or described in overly gory detail, but Anna does kill a lot of raiders in painful ways, so just be aware that's coming up.
> 
> also, Deacon is pretty dysphoric about his body and there's a quick moment of that in here.
> 
> let me know if you spot anything else you think I should be warning for!

“Good boy,” Deacon says, petting behind Dogmeat’s ears with both hands. “You’re a sweet puppy, aren’t you?"

Dog licks his face in agreement, then sniffs around his pockets for more treats.

“Oh, so that’s how it is,” Deacon says in mock offense. “You just want me for my jerky, huh? Yeah, the ladies do too."

Dog whines and gives him a pleading look.

“All right, all right."

He takes a strip of brahmin jerky out and Dogmeat immediately sits, whole body still and focused on the treat. Deacon gives it to him without making him perform a trick. He spends most of his day watching Anna train the dog through his binoculars anyway, and he figures Dog deserves a reward at the end of the day for behaving so well for his actual owner.

“I might not have the kind of meat sexy guys and gals want, but you’re happy with a literal strip of jerky, aren’t you boy?"

Dog gives a soft bwoof and shoves his snout in Deacon’s right armpit looking for another treat. The spy laughs and turns his palms up, showing he’s all out. Dog sniffs around a bit more, then accepts that was the last treat. He licks Deacon’s face a few more times anyway.

“Dog!” another voice calls, then whistles. “Here boy!"

“C’mon, mutt!"

“Aw, Marcy, don’t call him that."

“S’what he is."

“Anna said he was German something."

A contemptuous snort answers him. Dogmeat sits straight up, looking through the trees in the direction of the Longs. Deacon gives him a soft pat to go on, and the dog happily trots off.

“She can train him to respond to nonsense words but not to run off at night?"

“I don’t think—hey, look, he’s right here. It’s fine."

“Still say he ought to be chained up before he gets himself eaten by something."

“Don’t be like that, Mar. He doesn’t go far and he always …"

Jun’s voice fades away as they leave, but Deacon stays crouched down and silent for a few more long moments to be sure. Marcy has a sharp tongue and a decent shot, but the both are them are too worn down by grief to really be vigilant. Anna's robot companion Codsworth putters around helping tear down the partially collapsed houses for scrap, and Deacon doubts keeping an eyestalk out for spies is part of his programming. Sturges works hard all day and sleeps just as hard at night, snoring in the bedroom of the house connected to Anna’s workshop. He never stirred when Deacon sneaked in to steal one of her dirty work rags so Dogmeat would smell her on him. And Preston’s a good guy, good with a laser rifle too, but there’s only one of him and it’s easy to keep track of the wanna-be soldier as he does his rounds.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to be cautious, especially because Deacon has some sort of gut feeling. He isn’t really sure what it is, but it’s close to the feeling of being watched. Anna hasn’t given any sign of something being amiss or an awareness of being watched herself, but he could swear that she knows.

Deacon takes a seat at his lookout post and raises the bottle of stale beer to his lips as he watches the back of Anna’s house from his binoculars. From Jim’s report, she’s only been out of the Vault five days, and she’s already set up turrets, a water purifier, and three power generators. Granted, she scrapped a lot of parts from the Vault to make all that stuff, but it's still a damn sight more than even some towns had. All the electrical lights are off in her home. That doesn't necessarily mean she's asleep, but she’s at least retired for the night. Deacon knows she’ll emerge again at dawn to jog around the perimeter a few times. Then it’s back into the workshop. He doesn’t know what she’s working on now.

In fact, Deacon still doesn’t know much about Anna Howard, even after three days of watching her. She speaks to the settlers in one or two word sentences, if she even speaks at all. She hasn’t left the settlement in the three days he’s been watching. No drinking or chems, as far as he can tell.

What he does know:

Anna uses sign language, at least enough to teach basic commands to Dogmeat.

The same for Russian, although if his lipreading is correct, she’ll occasionally give answers to Preston in Russian too.

Anna can build or fix just about anything, from mechanics to carpentry.

Strong enough to carry wooden beams on her shoulder.

Looks very good chopping firewood.

Not that the last one is really any of his business, but he has eyes, and he can’t really help but note the way her arms flex and how her throat works as she gulps down water when she takes a break. Plus, he saw Preston looking too, so it’s not like he’s the only one.

Deacon grabs his modified funnel to take a piss break as said Minuteman does his last perimeter check. He stares straight ahead at the tree as he slots the funnel between his legs, not looking down because the sight always makes his stomach twists. He’s had sixty years of working memory to get used to not seeing a penis down there; knows that he wasn’t even built with one in the first place, but some part of his dumb traitor brain insists that’s what he should see and then freaks out when it’s just plastic instead.

Beats squatting down and pissing on his ankles though. At least the funnel lets him aim.

After that is a few hours allotted to sleep, broken up by quick checks on the settlement. Someone needs to keep an eye out for raiders, and Preston strikes him as both too green and too exhausted. He should have taken the last three days to try to sleep off his grief over the Quincy Massacre, in Deacon’s opinion, but he can sure as hell understand throwing yourself into your work to not think about it. Everyone has their own “it” they need to not think about. He’ll stare sleeplessly at the stars until dawn himself.

Not like synths technically need sleep anyway.

*** * ***

The man with sunglasses has a blue aura and he plays with her dog. It’s a German Shepard with combat training and a collar that says “Dogmeat.” Anna scratched out the latter half when she found him, and now she calls him Dog. She doesn’t care that the civilians think she’s too dumb or unimaginative to come up with a better name. She’s not referring to her dog as food. The shortened version of his name is all he responds to, anyway.

The civilians are at least nice to Dog. Most animals just have a clear haze around them, but the colors of their auras have rubbed onto his. Pink, brown, lavender. Red from Marcy and yellow from Jun. Mostly Anna’s own deep purple, now turned indigo from someone with a blue aura playing with her dog. Sunglasses Man is the only one to come creeping around Sanctuary since she’s turned it into a settlement. It’s most likely that the blue splashes in Dog’s aura come from him.

He's smart. Feed her dog so he won’t bark when he catches wind of a strange scent. The amount of blue in Dog’s aura suggests something more than the occasional treat though. Sunglasses Man has actually been playing with the dog.

First closing Nate’s eyes, now this. Anna hadn’t thought of doing that either. Not that she's a bad owner. She checks Dog daily for ticks or injuries. Gives him plenty of food and water. Even pets him despite her distaste for touch because dogs need that. But she never would have come up with the idea to … play fetch? Is that what people do with dogs? She’s working on training him to respond to Russian commands, sign language, and keep the civilians from touching her. That seems like enough to her.

“General, are you heading—“ Preston stops and looks her over, giving a low whistle. “Damn. Well that’s new."

Anna throws a few practice punches to get a feel for how her suit moves with her. The old vault suit she had was ripped and stained with blood. Prying her way out of the pod had scratched it up first, then the whole incident down in Concord. Not like there weren’t plenty more where that came from though. Anna didn’t have any qualms about looting the dead, so she had a whole wardrobe of them from Vault 111. The civilians were more squeamish and declined.

“How does the metal--” Preston gestures to her arms.

In addition to reinforcing a new vault suit, Anna also wears a suit of mail on top of it. Codsworth stored all her and Nate’s valuables in the basement, which remained intact. Too bad he didn’t think to do that before the first group of raiders came around and stole Nate’s sword collection. Anna would literally kill to have one of those broadswords back. If she ever sees a raider running around with one of Nate’s swords, she’s going to chop them up an inch at a time.

“Links,” Anna says.

She stops shadowboxing and steps closer to show him. Thousands of tiny metal circles link together to form a suit of mail. Not as good as kevlar, but it’ll stop most blunt force trauma. The metal glints silver over her blue vault suit.

“Damn,” Preston repeats. “That must have taken … please tell me you didn’t build this last night. That’s not possible, right? Sturges?"

Sturges stops in the street when he hears Preston call. The garage door is up for once, leaving the workshop open to their tiny public. His eyes widen and he echoes Preston’s whistle when he sees Anna’s new suit.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he drawls. “It sure as hell shouldn’t be possible, but I didn’t think she could get electricity up and running in two days either, and I had to eat my words about that. So I ain’t gonna say anything this time, ma’am."

Anna’s facial expression doesn’t change, but she gives a pleased hum. Codsworth comes out the front door of her house and spots them gathered across the street. He hovers over to see what’s going on. She should have known opening up the workshop would bring everyone in.

“Oh mum,” Codsworth says. “I’m so glad you’re getting use out of sir’s old chain mail!"

“That was Nate’s?” Preston asks.

Anna nods. He hadn’t done anything with it since college, but he loved showing off his swords and telling people about the reenactment battles he fought in. Anna hadn’t been allowed to handle the swords when they were in Medieval Society together. She was just there to cook “authentic” meals and sew him costumes.

But that was almost twenty years ago, and a lot has changed since then.

“Oh yes,” Codsworth says when Anna doesn’t verbally answer. “Master Nate was very proud of his collection from his reenactment days. I—I should have stored it all sooner, but—"

Anna lays a hand on the side of his metal body. “You did fine."

Touching the robot isn’t so bad. Petting Dog is even kind of nice. It’s other people she has a problem with.

“Can I see how they hook together?” Sturges asks.

He reaches out to touch, and Dog barks at him. The sound stops Anna from automatically grabbing his wrist and twisting his arm around. Dog trots over and sits between her and the two other men, tail wagging on the workshop floor. He isn’t unfriendly, but he’s clearly keeping them out of her space.

“How does the chain mail hook together?” Preston tries.

“Mail,” Anna corrects.

“Yes, mum is right of course,” Codsworth says, jumping back into the conversation. “I did say chain mail earlier, didn’t I? That’s actually inaccurate, sir and mum are very insistent about it. Mail is french for chain, so saying both words is redundant. But, if I may, mum? I don’t believe many people know what you mean when you just call it mail. Inaccurate though it may be, chain mail has more popular currency as a word."

Anna shrugs. Popular currency is irrelevant and chain mail is inaccurate. She returns to her workbench as Codsworth explains how the mail is created. The feed on her Pipboy shows the Vault remains undisturbed. The Dead Man hasn’t returned. Sanctuary has crops, water, and electricity. She has food, armor, and clawed gauntlets for her hands.

There’s no more reason to stay.

“Preston,” Anna calls.

He immediately snaps to attention. “Yes, General?"

“Leaving for Diamond City,” she says. “You’re in charge."

He nods slowly. She’s explained in clipped sentences about her son. He should understand why she needs to leave. He even recommended she start her search in Diamond City himself. But his pink aura still wavers in hesitation.

“Are you going to be all right on your own?” he asks.

“Have dog,” she replies.

Dog barks in agreement upon hearing his name.

“All right,” Preston agrees. “Just be sure to steer clear of Thickett Excavations. Last I heard, raiders were sniffing around there, looking to drain out the water and set up camp."

Anna nods silently.

“Did you get the food I packed for you, mum?” Codsworth asks. “What about the water? Do you want to take your pillow? How heavy is your bag? I know you’re quite strong, but sustained weight on your back can result in—"

"Я хорошо,” Anna says. “Благодарю."

“You’re welcome, mum.” Codsworth moves closer, hovering anxiously next to her. “I’m sure you’ll find young Master Shaun, but please, do be careful while you’re gone."

“I will."

*** * ***

Deacon can’t fucking believe it when Anna heads straight for Thickett Excavations as soon as she sets out. There has to be at least three dozen raiders holed up in there. He’s even more outraged when she simply hops the fence and strolls in. She kills the three raiders on lookout while Deacon crouches behind one of the trailers to watch. Dogmeat grabs one of them by the leg and drags him down, then rips out his throat while she does a similar move on the second one with the clawed gauntlets she’s wearing. The third raider stumbles out of his trailer and doesn’t even get out a shout before she tosses him over the edge.

Deacon closes his eyes and lets out a slow breath as he hears the man’s scream fade and then cut off abruptly when he hits the bottom. Anna leaves her bag in the other trailer and tells Dogmeat to “Guard.” He expects her to have a gun in hand when she steps out, but all she holds is a tire iron with a blade duct taped to the end.

No.

No, no, no. She cannot be serious.

But Anna heads down the ramp armed with nothing but a glorified knife-stick against three dozen fully armed raiders, fucking whistling as she goes.

Deacon groans and hits his head against the side of the trailer a few times. Why couldn’t she decide to be crazy on level ground?

God-fucking-dammit.

The Institute has something to do with Vault 111. Anna is the only survivor. Her son is missing, maybe kidnapped by them. Deacon doesn’t know what the connection is, but she’s clearly important to them somehow. Even if she’s just a loose end, it’s a better lead than anything he’s had in over a decade. He can’t let her die, even if she clearly has a death wish herself.

Deacon runs after her, staying low and out of sight. He peers over the edge of the ramp and spots her on the stone ledge to the right, about one story down. That slinky metal armor she has over her vault suit might stop a small caliber bullet, but she’s fucked if someone breaks out a machine gun. And that “it’s raining men” stunt she just pulled will have alerted every raider all the way down that something is going down.

He watches as a raider spots her and raises his gun. She calmly bats his arm away and then swings the bladed edge of the tire iron into his neck on the backstroke. Another raider runs up, but she runs him through, stepping over the first raider’s body as he falls to the ground, clutching his neck. From there, she uses the second raider impaled on her knife-stick as a human shield as she deals with raiders three and four.

The set up of the narrow ramps down will force the raiders to take her on in small groups, and Deacon is beginning to get the feeling Anna is the type of gal who can bring a knife-stick to a gun fight and win.

Spear. As Deacon watches her, he realizes she’s using it as a spear.

It also looks like she’ll be fine for a few moments without him, so he jogs back over to the trailer where she left Dogmeat. The dog barks happily when he sees him, but doesn’t let him near her bag.

“C’mon,” Deacon pets Dog and looks into his eyes. “We’re friends, aren’t we, buddy? I’m not stealing anything, I’m just getting some stimpacks ready for her because your owner is a crazy lady."

He reaches for the bag, but Dog headbutts his arm away again.

“Listen,” he tries again. “She’s down there taking on like, fifty raiders at once. She doesn’t even have a fucking gun, and she left all her stimpacks up here."

Dog grabs Deacon’s arm with his teeth, but doesn’t bite down, just holds it like when they play-wrestle.

“I’m not stealing them, I swear! I’m just getting them for her ahead of time. She’s going to want these soon, buddy, I promise."

Dogmeat’s tail wags, but he doesn’t let go of Deacon’s arm. He gives an exasperated sigh, but absently pets the dog anyway as he looks around the inside of the trailer. Sure enough, there’s a chem cooler in the corner. Dog lets go of Deacon’s arm when he stands up and doesn’t stop him from opening the cooler. It only has one stim and a vial of Psycho, which Deacon isn’t super excited about, but shit. If it’ll get her out alive.

“Oh, so you’re not going to protect these?” he asks Dog as he swipes the chems.

Dogmeat pants and wags his tail in response.

“All right, fine. You heard Anna, stay here. Stay."

Deacon backs out of the trailer, and Dogmeat doesn’t try to follow him. One hell of a loyal dog Anna has there.

Now to make sure she comes back to him.

*** * ***

Anna holds the tire iron in both hands to block the swing of a spiked bat. She shoves back and sends the raider stumbling into his friends. One of them clips her in the shoulder with a 10mm, but her mail stops the bullet. The pain form the impact is just an abstract fact in the back of her mind and doesn’t slow her down at all. She stabs the raider in front of her, hard enough to puncture through his back and into the stomach of the raider behind him. The third raider to her right tries to gut her with a knife. His aura projects his movements, flicking in front of where he’s about to move. Anna turns and takes the blade on her hip, but it just skitters off her mail anyway. She head butts the raider back and yanks her makeshift spear out of the other two.

Another raider runs down the narrow ledge at her. Anna throws the tire iron and the blade hits him square in the chest, hard enough to knock him backwards. She grabs the stunned raider she headbutted and casually tosses him over the edge. The other one is gasping and gurgling when she moves forward. She plants her foot on his chest to hold him down while she draws out the bladed tire iron. He has a grenade clipped to his belt.

Guns were too much temptation. Too easy to backslide into her old life. High risk of friendly fire once she got into a fight and started killing everything in her path. But she’s left her dog behind. The only other people here are the raiders themselves. So maybe one little grenade won’t be too bad.

Anna picks up the grenade. She can see another group of raiders holed up in a tiny room carved out of the stone catty-corner to where she is. She pulls the pin, winds up, and throws the grenade across the gap.

It hits the wall so hard it bounces off with a crack and sails down the big hole in the middle of the stone quarry. The explosion booms harmlessly halfway down, midair. One of the raiders peeks out of the room and makes eye contact with her.

Anna shrugs. It was worth a shot. Not her fault the grenade was so light. She’s only good at throwing big things with actual weight to them. Good distraction though. The sound of raiders running up to meet her pauses as they all hunker down.

The little room only holds two more raiders, one male and one female. Anna leans against the wall next to the door and reaches over to turn the knob. Both raiders open fire as soon as the door opens. She stays leaned against the wall, waiting for them to run out of bullets or realize she isn’t stupid enough to actually stand in the doorway.

Their guns click empty first. Drugged up idiots. Anna is about to push off the wall and go inside to finish this when she sees a blue aura coming down the ledge. No body to go with it. She stares as it gets closer.

Stealth tech? It’s the only thing she can think of that would hide a body but apparently not an aura. She suddenly has to suppress a laugh. Her Sunglasses Man probably thinks he’s so slick, slipping past her all invisible. She resists the urge to make an after you gesture as he passes. She’s already fucked up her initial reaction by staring at him, but no need to make it too obvious that she can see him.

The male raider pops his head out of the doorway to see what’s going on after the blue aura passes. She stabs him in the face for his trouble. The woman is wild-eyed with Psycho when Anna walks in, and she pulls the pin on a grenade. Doesn’t even throw it, just lets it drop to the ground. Anna takes two quick strides forward and grabs the woman by the shoulder, tossing her to the ground and holding her on top of the grenade. Her body jerks when it goes off. Anna snaps her neck so she doesn’t suffer for long.

The man is still curled up in a ball, screaming and clutching at the hole in his eye when Anna steps over his body on her way out. She doesn’t spare him a second glance.

The rest of the quarry is business as usual all the way down. Stabbing, clawing, tossing raiders over the edge. It’s less effective the further she goes down. When she reaches the bottom, there are a few raiders still alive down there. The ones that survived a drop of only about a story or two. She dispatches them quickly.

The mirelurks she leaves alone. They’re already in pens and they can’t help being mirelurks.

But when Anna finds the Boss Raider’s trailer, he’s already dead on the floor. Still wearing Power Armor. Shot straight between the eyes. She flips him over with a heave. Several of the wires and tubing in the back have been sliced through, right beneath the fusion core. Likely rendered him immobile before the shot.

Sneak up behind, hamstring them, bullet in the head. A bit too clean cut assassination for Anna’s taste. The chems are neatly laid out on the boss’s table. Stims to one side, hard stuff to the other. All lined up.

Little flickers of blue still cling to them.

Anna gives a frustrated growl. Now she knows three things. Her Sunglasses Man has a blue aura, plays with her dog, and is a dirty fucking kill-stealer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up: Diamond City! Anna meets Piper, Mayor McDonough, and Logan, a security guard who toootally isn't Deacon. Unfortunately, and ironically, the detective she intends to hire is also missing ...


	4. I Ain't Never (Seen Nobody Like You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and Anna finally meet face to face, and Dogmeat is a cover-blowing traitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: there's some references / strong implications of domestic abuse from Anna's first husband, but it passes by quickly and Dogmeat is there to comfort her; also some sexism from a new character at the end, but his fuckery is not condoned. other than that, I think this chapter is Wholesome.

Deacon lights a cigarette while he waits for Anna to arrive at the gates to Diamond City. He had to run to get here ahead of her, got in all his cardio for the whole year, and now he deserves to reward himself with some sweet, sweet lung cancer.

“And then she said,” Danny Sullivan makes a constipated look to mimic Myrna’s usual expression. “ _You got a synth look today, Dan. Why do you look so synth-y?_ "

Deacon gives a sympathetic hum and takes a long, glorious drag. He’s not worried about Anna needing his help anymore, not after the way she cleared out Thickett on her own. Well, he did take out the big boss man, but only because he didn’t like the thought of her taking on some Psych’ed up asshole in Power Armor after fighting all the way down to the bottom.

“Like, I don’t fucking know Myrna.” Danny fishes out his own cigarette and Deacon obligingly gives him a light. “What do synths even look like anyway?"

“Synth-sational,” Deacon immediately replies.

Danny lets his head drop down to his desk, cigarette safely held up in his hand as he groans. “I hope China nukes us again, right now, just for that."

Deacon pats his back. “Sorry, buddy."

“Hey, open up!” The buzzer at the gates sounds. “Danny, you there?"

Shit. Piper Wright, reporter and snoop extraordinaire. She didn’t believe he was a caravan guard who occasionally moonlighted for DC, and she’d been hounding him for an interview for a while.

“Uh … yeah,” Danny answers with a nervous tremble in his voice. “But, listen, Pipes. The thing is … I can’t let you in."

“What do you mean you can’t open the gate?” Piper demands. “Stop playing around, Danny. I’m standing out in the open here for crying out loud!"

“I got orders not to let you in, Ms. Piper,” Danny says. “Sorry, I’m just doing my—"

“ _Just doing your job?_ ” Piper finishes for him with a sneer. “Protecting Diamond City means—"

“Yeah, I’m just gonna go,” Deacon whispers as her rant gets louder, stubbing out his cigarette in preparation of making a quick getaway. “and have a talk with Myrna about harassing citizens. Right now."

Danny takes his finger off the buzzer and hisses, “Don’t leave me, man!"

“You open this gate right now, Danny Sullivan,” Piper yells. “I live here. You can’t just lock me out!"

Deacon raises his hands and backs away, mouthing _I’m so sorry._

“What’s that?” Piper says in an overly loud voice. “You say you’re a trader from Quincy? You have enough supplies to keep the general store stocked for a month? Huh."

Deacon is almost to the elevator when a second voice stops him in his tracks.

“I’m from up north actually,” Anna says. “I have pre-war tech and clean water."

He rushes back over and gives Danny a thumbs up, who looks at him suspiciously and buzzes the mic back on.

“Where’d you get that stuff?” Danny asks.

“The new vault."

Danny takes a drag and shakes his head even though she can’t see him. “Nuh uh, that thing’s protected by the General of the Minutemen. I hear he took on three deathclaws at once with his bare hands."

“One deathclaw, and I was in Power Armor,” Anna replies. “Ain’t that impressive, kid, but I’m flattered. Now open the gate."

“I heard about this settlement from the caravan route,” Deacon whispers to Danny. “It has clean water, good defenses, and running power generators. They’re the real deal. Mayor’s gonna want to trade with them."

“Yeah, but Piper’s gonna come in too,” Danny whispers back.

Deacon grimaces, but he shrugs. “You win some, you lose some."

Danny sighs. “All right. Gate’s coming up, ladies."

The motors whir as the gate raises up to reveal Piper and Dogmeat. Only Anna’s torso is visible. The gate slowly lifts a bit further to show her arms folded across her chest. Then her shoulders. Finally her head, which she has to duck to get under the gate on her way in as it slowly clambers up. Danny stares at the biggest woman he’s likely seen in his life, cigarette hanging limp from his lips, then snaps to attention as he sits up straight when her eyes fall on him.

“Miss, uh …?” he croaks.

Anna doesn’t give him a name. “General.”

“Yes sir, General-ma’am!"

Dogmeat bounds forward to cuddle up against Deacon’s legs before Danny can make any more of an idiot of himself. The dog sniffs loudly at Deacon’s vest for treats, then shoves his face in Deacon’s crotch when he doesn’t find any.

“Whoa now.” Deacon uses his collar to gently pull his head back. “Friendly dog you got here, General."

Anna gives him a slow once over. “Only with people he knows."

Deacon grins at her and sidesteps that thinly veiled accusation. “Most people buy me dinner before they look at me like that."

Piper scoffs. “No one looks at you like that, Logan."

“Ah, pipe down. Shouldn’t you be printing something?” he asks her.

“Oh yeah.” Piper spreads her hands across the air in front of her to mimic a headline. “Local Man Never Looked at Like That: Resorts to Bad Puns for Attention."

“You have no idea,” Danny says.

Deacon claps a hand over his heart. “I’m wounded. Hey, why don’t you protect me, huh buddy? Bite the bad lady."

Dogmeat looks at Deacon handing pointing to Piper, then trots over to her to promptly stick his face in her crotch next in his search for treats.

“Oh wow,” Piper yelps, not unkindly pushing his head away. “He is friendly. Yeah, I definitely get dinner first before that."

“Oh, you uh … you do?” Danny asks, quickly lifting his cigarette back up to cover his blush.

Piper snaps back into reporter mode in an instant. “Dinner and an exclusive interview with—"

Anna’s whistle cuts through the air and the chatter. Dog forgets about Piper and obediently trots over to resume his position at Anna’s side. She reaches behind her and takes a power bar out of a side pocket in her bag. Deacon almost doesn’t catch it when she throws it to him. Near him, at least. He didn’t expect her to have such bad aim, but no one comments on it.

“Tour,” she says to Deacon.

So she can act enough to get what she wants, but one word sentences are still her preferred method of communication. Deacon files that information away even as he smiles at her.

“You got it, boss,” he says. “Any place in particular—"

“Piper!” Mayor McDonough’s voice calls. “Who let you back in here?"

Danny winces and Piper’s eyes flash bright as she steps up, always eager for another yelling match. Deacon leans back against the counter to watch how this will play out. More specifically, how Anna will react. She doesn’t interfere as Piper and the Mayor get into it. Her eyes lock onto his instead. He doesn’t wear his sunglasses when he’s in character. Too recognizable. Anyway, it’s easier to lie when you can look someone in the eyes and say it with conviction. People don’t trust a man if they can’t see his eyes. Anna holds his gaze for a moment, then jerks her head at the city’s entrance.

She walks right past Piper and the mayor, apparently not concerned with their spat at all. Deacon follows of course. Technically, she had treated him to dinner. And actually, he was starving after running all the way up here, so the power bar for a tour really was a welcome trade. Mayor McDonough turns to call after them, but Piper is just getting worked up into another rant about what a tyrant he is, and he lets them go to deal with that. Deacon falls in line next to Anna, watching her closely as she sees the “big city" in person for the first time.

*** * ***

Anna looks at Diamond City and is not impressed. The Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth. All the people huddled in the baseball stadium wouldn’t match a tenth of how many people attended a game each Sunday.

“I’m Logan by the way,” Sunglasses Man says, taking out his pack to offer her a cigarette. “No offense, but you look like you could use a smoke. Maybe a stress ball or something. You can get your own room at Dugout Inn if you need some space for a while."

Anna glances over at him. Logan. He’s not wearing his sunglasses anymore, so the new name will have to work. She can’t tell if he’s lying. His aura swirls around, never still for long. It’s as blue as his eyes. Fear and aggression are easy to spot. An aura flinching back or aggressively pushing forward. Emotions and lies can manifest themselves in any number of movements. He holds out the pack to her.

“I quit."

Her own lie is a familiar one. Anna doesn’t accept gifts from men. Men don’t give gifts. They rack up invoices. And you think they’re your friend until they hit you with the bill. _I did x number of Nice Things for you, so now you owe me [sexual act.]_

“All right,” Logan says with a shrug. “Do you mind?"

He takes out a cigarette for himself and looks to her for permission. Anna thinks about saying she does just to see what he’ll do. But she’s so tired. Not physically. If her next task was to clear out another den of raiders to protect her neighborhood, she wouldn’t have any complaints. But her next task is to talk to Valentine. Tell this detective what happened to her son. She should also speak to the mayor. Establish trade between this makeshift city and Sanctuary. Ask “Logan” about the new world she’s in. The factions, the currency, the politics.

So much talking.

Anna simply shakes her head no and conserves her energy. Mama Murphey said her son’s energy was still out there. Preston said Valentine tracked down missing people. Speaking to him was priority.

“Hey, listen.” Logan takes a drag and blows the smoke away from her. "I’ll give you the low down on the city, and you don’t have to talk back or anything. If there’s something you want to say though, just tell me to shut up. I can be quiet, honest."

He speaks in full sentences. Many sentences. At least he has a nice voice. Anna lets the sound wash over her. She doesn’t like speaking, but that doesn’t mean she enjoys silence. Learning about Diamond City fits into her third objective, and not needing to participate in the conversation is convenient for her.

“This here is the market.” Logan spreads his arms to encompass the mismatched mash of stalls. “Food, weapons, chems, yadda yadda. I mentioned the Dugout Inn already, you can get a room there for the night. The interesting places are the Science Center, Publick Occurrences, and Valentine’s Agency."

Anna looks over at him. “Valentine."

“You heard about him?” Logan asks.

She nods. “Detective."

“Yeah, best in the Commonwealth,” he says. “If you need a debt collected, cat rescued, or somebody found, Nick Valentine is your synth."

Synth. Slang for a race? Member of a gang? Anna doesn’t bother to ask. That information is irrelevant. No accurate conclusions can be drawn from the color of a person’s skin. And she knows how to deal with gangs.

Logan flicks ash on the ground. “Want to head over?"

He doesn’t ask which service she needs. Anna assumes he’s figured out a basic idea of what happened from snooping around the vault. She wanted to see what he would do if she let him hang around. So far, the answer seems to be acting helpful. Most likely he wants to recruit her to some gang or faction. That makes this period the Suck Up period. Misguided attempts to protect her, giving her a tour around Diamond City, escorting her wherever she wants to go.

Anna nods at him to lead on. When he takes her down an alley out of public sight, she grabs him by his kevlar vest and slams him against the metal wall. His aura is drawn up in defense. He doesn’t struggle though, palms held up and clearly displayed.

“Following me,” she says.

“Uhh, actually, you were following me,” he replies. “I’m taking you to the detective, yeah?"

Goddammit. The understood you isn’t always understood. Now she has to rephrase her sentence, say the whole thing out loud like a real human being. She fucking hates that.

“Why. Are you. Following. Me?” Anna grits out.

She’s just so fucking tired. Torturing him would be easier. She found a good knife at Thickett Excavations that she’s kept.

“I’m just a freelance guard,” Logan tells her. “Caravans, trading posts, sometimes I get a gig here for a week or two when they’re short staffed."

The problem with torture is Anna has an unrealistic pain threshold. She was never allowed to torture in the mafia because she started too high. Stabbed people for the very first question. She could survive a stabbing. It wasn’t her fault they bled too much or died of shock.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says.

Anna stares at him. In his defense, his aura never has indicated any signs of aggression toward her. He’s nice to her dog. He treated her husband’s corpse with respect, more than even she thought to show. His eyes are very sincere. But men don’t often bother to make eye contact with a woman unless they’re lying to her.

“I’m not stalking you or anything. Maybe you’ve just seen me around someplace else. Like I said, I get hired in lots of places, travel all over. And I think I have one of those faces, you know? All friendly and just between handsome and not-actively-ugly, so sometimes I get mistaken for other—"

Anna drops him and walks away. That part is definitely bullshit and she’s too tired to listen to it. Killing or torturing him won’t get her any information about who he really is and who he works for. Might as well let him tag along and see what she can learn from him that way. She signs for Dog to stay outside while she goes into the agency.

“I’ll just wait out here then,” Logan calls after her.

*** * ***

Anna steps back into the alleyway to see Logan and her dog play-wrestling in the dirt. Both dog and man freeze like they’ve been caught cheating. Dog backs off of Logan and slinks over to her. She’s seen those puppy eyes before. It was a one time thing, we were both drunk, they started it.

Kidnapped son. Missing detective. And now her dog is cheating on her with a better owner.

Anna is too fucking tired for this.

Logan stands up and makes a big show of brushing the dirt off his guard uniform. She starts walking down the alley without waiting for him, and he jogs to catch up with her.

“That didn’t take long,” he says. “Nick not in?"

“Kidnapped.” Anna flexes her hands in and out of fists.

Logan curses quietly. They walk in silence, Anna allowing him to move ever so slightly ahead of her to lead the way. At least she had a starting point. Skinny Malone. The mob seems to have survived the apocalypse just fine. She didn’t have many dealings with the Italians in her own mafia days, but she knows how they work.

Retrieving the detective from them is still a detour from finding Shaun. People should just fucking stay put.

“Disappear, and I hunt you down,” Anna tells Logan.

“I thought you didn’t want me following you,” he says.

“You said you weren’t,” she retorts.

Logan flashes her a grin and opens the door to the Dugout for her. The two of them are at a stalemate for now. He won’t admit he’s following her, and she won’t admit to anything at all. What she does do is shove a small bag of caps against his chest as they walk inside. The thought of haggling for a room makes her head hurt. She walks right past the counter and down the hall she assumes has rooms available. Logan can use that smart mouth of his to haggle for her.

Two minutes. For two minutes she does nothing but lay on the bed and stare at the wall. She’s not physically tired. Only has a few cuts and bruises from clearing out the raiders. They were too close to her settlement. Plus, she looted plenty of what passes for money now. Bottle caps. Fucking ridiculous. She misses cash. Stacks of hundred dollar bills. Twenty-five thousand was one stack by one and a fourth, two and five-eights, six and a fourth. Twelve stacks in a briefcase. Nine hundred thousand.

Anna thinks about dimensions and compression. Just a little more wiggle room for an extra hundred thousand. Fit in the magic number of one million. A million dollar briefcase weighs twenty-two pounds. She knows the weight well.

The thoughts of cash and briefcases calm her until a soft knock interrupts. Duh duh-duh-duh-duh. Duh duh. Dog lifts his head and wags his tail from his spot on the floor. She gets up and opens the door. Logan.

“Did Ellie tell you what went down with Nick?” he asks.

Anna nods. “Malone."

“Yeah, he’s a second-rate gangster who’s set up in an abandoned vault in the Common,” Logan says. “I can take you over, if you’d still like a tour guide."

“Tomorrow, seven."

Anna shuts the door in his face. Another knock stops her from going back to bed. She sighs. It was only a week ago that she pretended to be a perfectly ordinary housewife every day. Eye contact, perky smile, cheek kisses. Monthly barbecues and weekly book clubs. She hated it all, but that’s what it took to raise Shaun in a safe neighborhood away from the riots and food shortages.

One week of not needing to pretend has spoiled her.

“What?” Anna asks, opening the door again.

Logan lifts up the bag of caps. “Uh, these are yours."

The bag she gave him just had a couple hundred of them, but she figured that would be enough for one night. It doesn’t look like he’s removed any at all though. Cash and briefcases were so much simpler. Anna doesn’t know what the going rate is for anything with this new currency. She takes the bag back and tests its weight. He probably paid … twenty? Between ten and fifty caps for this room.

“I paid for one night, plus a little extra so no one’ll bother you,” he says. “You want me to run down to the market and get you some food? Cup of noodles, can-o'-cram?"

“No."

Anna shuts the door again. When there’s no knock, she sits back down on the bed. She doesn’t bother taking her mail or boots off. Might need to be up in a hurry. Dogmeat doesn’t mind and jumps up to join her. She curls around him, burying her face in his fur, and letting his heartbeat lull her to sleep.

*** * ***

Anna gasps awake half an hour past dawn. She’s slept in. Joseph will be furious. She scrambles off the bed and her knees hit the wooden floor. _Make it stop._ The cries of her baby reverberate through her head as she kneels, waiting to be punished. Her baby cries louder. _Goddammit, woman. Make it stop!_ He’s so mad, he’s going to punish her, she’s a wicked--

Something licks her face, and Anna jerks back. The nightmare releases its grip on her slowly. She can see, but none of the shapes and colors make sense. The thing that licked her whines and pushes closer. Dog. This is a dog. Her dog. He licks her face again. She lets him crawl into her lap, pressed against her chest.

Anna sits like that for several minutes. Dog pants against her neck, occasionally bumping his head against hers to try to get a reaction. Finally she lifts her arms to hug him. His tail thumps against the floor and he gives her more licking kisses.

This is her dog. She found him at the gas station next to Sanctuary. That’s her home. Settlement. The bombs dropped and now it’s a settlement, not a neighborhood. The baseball stadium is now a city. Diamond City.

Anna takes another minute to make sure she remembers where she is before she opens her eyes again. The shapes and colors blink into walls and objects. She stands up and stretches the feeling of kneeling out of her legs. Dog barks and thumps his tail agains the floor again, ready to head out. Anna looks down at him. Fuck. He usually follows Preston around in the morning. She knows he’ll get bored cooped up in here with her.

Anna checks the room to her right first. A woman freezes in the act of rifling through a man’s pockets, said man passed out face-down-ass-up on the bed. Anna gives the woman a nod and shuts the door. The room to her left has a chair fallen in the path of the door when she opens it. Logan starts awake on the bed. He’s wearing his sunglasses again even though he was just sleeping.

“Shit, sorry about that,” he tells her. “Must’ve knocked that over last night."

Anna looks down at the turned over chair on the floor. An early warning system, so no one could come through the door without waking him. Anna realizes she should have knocked. Dog is practically vibrating with restrained excitement beside her.

“Walk him,” Anna tells Logan.

She gives Dog a little wave, and he runs over to Logan as soon as he has her permission. Logan is a good sport though and doesn’t shove the dog away when he jumps up on the bed.

“Hey, buddy.” He sits up and scratches behind Dog’s ears. “You want to go for a walk? Huh, boy?”

Anna doesn’t like her dog bonding with someone else. He’s her dog. But he doesn’t deserve to be bored and ignored for over an hour while she does her morning exercise and yoga routine.

Logan looks up at Anna. “And what about you? Wanna get your steps in?"

Anna’s eyes narrow at him. The older ladies in her neighborhood used to walk around grocery stores, puffing along the aisles, trying to get their ten thousand steps per day to keep their figure trim. Only men got to age gracefully. How did that phrase survive the apocalypse? She curtly shakes her head no and leaves his room to return to her own.

Grit on the unswept wooden floor bites in her hands as she drops down to start with pushups. _Make the crying stop Bethany!_ She puts her left hand behind her back, relying on her right arm to move her body up and down. The echoes of the nightmare are gone by the time she switches arms. Nothing is left when she stands up and moves into Tree Pose.

No thoughts, no emotion, no fear.

*** * ***

Deacon watches Anna leave, then looks down at Dogmeat who stares up at him like he’s the greatest person in the world. In reality, he’s a lying asshole who wants nothing more than a few more hours of sleep. But Dog has faith in him, and he doesn’t have the heart to let those puppy dog eyes down.

“All right, buddy.” Deacon pushes himself to his feet. “Do you want to visit Crazy Myrna first or go see Ellie?"

Dog barks, and Deacon nods.

“Yeah, I like Ellie better too."

Unfortunately, not many people are up right now. Mainly because it’s just past ass’o’clock and no one sane voluntarily wakes up at this hour. Deacon amuses himself by running the bases with Dogmeat, but that’s only fun once—actually, it’s only fun until halfway through. Three-fourths is a regret, and he hates himself by the time he finishes a full lap.

Not that he’s particularly out of shape. Deacon does his fair share of running, mostly away from danger and people who want to kill him and especially away from happiness, but running just for fun is not on his list of World’s Best Hobbies. Dogmeat very much disagrees however, barking and dropping down into play-crouch, his whole butt waving with his tail. Deacon gives in and wrestles with the dog for a while until he has to tap out against the dirt, Dogmeat sitting triumphantly on his chest.

After that little romp, the city has started to wake up. Deacon checks in on the tourists and a few of his other contacts Dez doesn’t know about. He comforts Ellie and tells her he’ll do something about Nick. The synth is his oldest friend, the only one old enough to know Deacon’s been around almost as long as he has, not that he’s ever mentioned it to anyone. Keeping a secret like that should buy some amount of loyalty, but Deacon is already thinking of someone else to send after Nick so he can stay on Anna. Glory might be willing to do it for him on the sly, so the “Gen 1, Gen 2” debate doesn’t get started again.

He’s still turning it over in his head as he leaves the agency. Dogmeat barks once when they reach the market and runs up to the noodle stand where Anna is eating. Deacon could have— _should_ have—paid for her meal. Two hundred caps and change for one room? It was probably a test to see if he would steal from her, but it’s also entirely possible that Anna hasn’t been out of the vault long enough to know what food and shelter is worth in bottle caps.

Deacon slows even further when he recognizes the man sitting next to her. Tommy Whispers. So HQ has heard about Anna too. Why couldn’t Dez have sent someone nice to spy on her, like Songbird or Sly Nick?

“—been working the ‘Wealth my whole life, you know?” Tommy is saying, leaning way too close to Anna.

Dogmeat wiggles his way in between their stools to put himself between Anna and Tommy. Deacon walks up behind the other man and claps him on the shoulder, pulling him back out of her space.

“Hey man, you’re not bothering this person, are you?” he asks.

Anna watches him silently, her face as blank as ever as she glances between the two of them.

“I’m just trying to make conversation with the lady,” Tommy says. “Don’t see why _Diamond City security_ has to get involved in that."

Deacon wishes the asshole could be at least a little less obvious about how much they hate each other other. Anna must pick up on it because she makes eye contact with him and jerks her chin at Tommy.

“Who’s he?” she asks.

“Some asshole,” Deacon says. “He hangs around and bothers people. You want me to shoo him off or just hold him down for you?"

“Yeah, I’d like to see you shoo me off,” Tommy sneers. “And if you want to hold me down for the pleasure of a lady like this, I’d like that too."

“You know him,” Anna says, still looking straight at Deacon as if Tommy isn’t here. “Don’t like him."

“Yeah, well.” Deacon shrugs as casually as he can. “He’s a menace."

Anna keeps staring at him. Her eyes are a lighter blue than his, so pale they’re almost grey. He feels like she can see through his skin, to the wires and metal and lies underneath.

“Hey, how about you hold this mutt down?” Tommy roughly pushes Dogmeat’s nose away to discourage his curious sniffing.

Anna stands up and walks away with a short whistle for Dog to follow. Deacon and the dog both fall in line behind her, but Tommy can’t take a hint.

“Whoa, hold on,” he calls, hurrying after them. “Listen lady, I—"

Anna abruptly stops. “General."

“General,” Tommy repeats, his smirk making it clear he’s just humoring her. “If you need a guide to take you through the ruins out there, I’ve been doing this for twenty years."

“That’s so impressive,” Anna says flatly.

Deacon snorts and makes sure his smirk is even more obnoxious than Tommy’s own. _She’s not interested in you, my guy._ Tommy doesn’t pick up on the silent message.

“You can pay me half now, half when we get there,” he tells Anna. “Wherever you want to go."

She looks over at Deacon and cocks her head like she’s analyzing him. He spreads his hands and plays it cool.

“Your call, boss,” he says.

Anna looks back at Tommy. “Park Street Station."

She turns away and heads for the ramp up to the gates before Tommy can reply. He glares at Deacon as he walks after her, deliberately knocking their shoulders. Deacon doesn’t bother retaliating. He knows exactly why Anna is bringing Tommy along. It’s a smart play. Now that she’s picked up on their rivalry—thanks for blowing it Tommy—she’s obviously going to play them against each other. Keep them close by where they can piss each other off until one of them slips up and gives something away.

But Deacon isn’t too worried. He’s the master of non-confrontation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if anyone's picked up on this, but I'm naming chapters after old country / western songs because Anna is Very Problematic and likes that stuff. the lyrics I liked from this song were, "You callin' me up, saying meet me at nine / I have to hurry, hurry but I'm there on time / I walk right up and knock on your door / the landlord says she ain't here no more!" and it makes me think of Deacon, slipping around, pulling shenanigans, never where he says he'll be.
> 
> also, I'm graduating today (Saturday) at 6, doing my walk, getting my diplomas for a double degree in Creative Writing and Humanities. so please pray for me, wish me luck, and hold your thumbs that I won't trip or faint or trip and then faint!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna decides that if fist fighting a deathclaw in Power Armor was fun, doing it barehanded will be even cooler! hint: it's really, really not. don't make bad decisions like Anna.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: patronizing sexism from a character who is clearly in the wrong, plus lots of violence as per usual.
> 
> spoiler trigger warnings: Dog is frightened but not killed, because I solemnly swear the dog will never die in any of my fiction.

  
“So you got a gun hiding somewhere, sweetheart, or are you just relying on this idiot,” Tommy asks. 

Anna keep walking without replying. The ruined streets are quiet, except for the annoying man’s posturing. Now it was just a test of wills. She hoped Logan snapped first and revealed something in the resulting fight with Tommy. Because if she snapped, it would be Tommy’s neck. 

“I don’t think the General here has ever relied on anyone for anything,” Logan says. “I heard she came out of the womb fully formed, a miniature adult, like a creepy Renaissance baby Jesus." 

Anna stops and presses her lips together. She doesn’t like smiling in front of people. Have pictures of Renaissance paintings survived? She remembers all the disturbing little “babies” meant to be Jesus that looked like very small, shockingly well-built adult men. But how the hell did Logan know about that? 

“—being annoying,” Tommy is saying when Anna shakes off that thought. “Shouldn’t you be back at Diamond City anyway. Since you’re a _guard_." 

Anna can practically hear the air quotes. She revises her estimation of what’s going to happen. Now it looks like Tommy will be the one to get pissed off and say something he shouldn’t. He certainly isn’t making any effort not to blow “Logan’s” cover. 

“It’s my day off,” he replies. “I just like the uniform. Makes me feel important." 

Logan’s blue aura swirls around him like a calm stream. Tommy’s aura is orange and flaring. Anger, Anna thinks. It’s easier for her to decipher emotions based on auras than facial expressions. 

“Some of us don’t need costumes to be important. Some of us do actual _work_ ,” Tommy retorts, then turns back to Anna. “Anyway. Before our conversation was interrupted." 

Anna glances around the intersection they’ve stopped at. Maybe some raiders are hiding behind that pile of debris. Maybe a Super Mutant will pop out at them and try to wrestle her. Maybe another deathclaw will crawl out of the sewers. 

“You know how to shoot a gun, darling?" 

Wishful thinking. 

“Don’t use guns,” Anna answers. 

Tommy makes an overly loud disbelieving scoff. “Don’t use … lady, you can’t—" 

“General,” Anna and Logan both say at the same time. 

“General,” Tommy repeats with a put upon sigh. “What kind of general doesn’t even know how to shoot a gun?" 

Anna never said she didn’t know how to use a gun, but she doesn’t correct him on that. Men were easier to kill when they underestimated her. 

Tommy is still talking at her. “I mean, what are you going to do if something attacks you?” 

She cracks her knuckles through the metal gauntlets on her hands. “Hit it." 

“What?” Tommy’s jaw drops open, and he stutters soundlessly for a moment. “Listen, General,  you can’t just … punch things. You have to have some sort of strategy before you go into fights." 

Anna pretends to think for a moment. “Hit it hard." 

Logan snorts with laughter and tries to quickly cover it up with a cough. Tommy whips around to snap something at him, but Logan beats him to it. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Logan says. “Choked on my own spit for a second there. See, I stopped by the chapel this morning, prayed to good ole St. Chris to bless our little field trip here, and I think it cleansed me of my wicked sinner ways." 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Tommy demands. 

Logan tries to keep a straight face, but a grin tugs at the corner of his lips. “I seem to have forgotten how to swallow." 

Anna barks out her own laugh. She doesn’t bother trying to hide it either, although she does cut the sound short. 

“Did you forget too?” Logan asks her, blue eyes and aura both sparkling. 

“Am good Christian.” Anna turns up her nose like the snooty housewife she played a week ago would. “Have never known." 

“Well, I’d tell you to keep it up, but …” Logan waggles his eyebrows suggestively, grin breaking out in full force. 

Anna looks away. She can feel the pull on her lips, and she knows she’ll smile if she makes eye contact with him. 

“Back in the adult world,” Tommy says loudly to draw their attention back to him, “where there are more important concerns than sacrilegious dick jokes …" 

He looks between Anna and Logan to be sure they’re paying attention to him. Logan lifts his hands in surrender. Anna’s gaze slowly wanders back over to him. 

“I can teach you how to shoot a gun,” Tommy tells her. “Even a big gal like you needs to know how to protect herself." 

Just like that her good mood is gone. Anna focuses on staying calm. She took Tommy along to aggravate Logan, not herself. 

“I do,” she says. 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the general.” Tommy stops just short of sneering the word and rolling his eyes. “It’s real cute you call yourself that, sweetie." 

Anna knows she’s being baited. Tommy clearly wants her to get angry, try to hit him, show him what she can really do. It’s obvious, but the word sweetie keeps pounding through her head. 

“Do you even know how to throw a punch?" 

_I love you, sweetie._ Nate’s voice this time, not Joseph. _We don’t have to do that. I’m fine with just kissing. I don’t mind._

“You can’t tuck your thumb inside your fingers or you’ll break it." 

_I’m so sorry, sweetie. I was kind of drunk and she came onto me and it just sort of happened. I promise I’ll never do it again._

“Make sure you keep your wrist straight too, so you don’t—" 

Anna's world has faded to shapes and colors again. There’s a pale blob in front of her making noise. She wants it to stop, make it stop, has to stop— 

A gunshot cracks through the air. 

*** * ***

Deacon feels a little bad when Anna’s plan begins to backfire. Mostly he feels ashamed that Tommy is a Railroad agent because he’s such an infuriating little piss weasel. 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the General,” Tommy says with a scoff. 

Deacon wants to strangle him. Anna might actually do it. He thinks he’ll give her ten seconds head start before he tries to stop her. A little brain damage will do Tommy good. 

“It’s real cute that you call yourself that, sweetie." 

Anna stops breathing. Tommy doesn’t notice, but Deacon’s trained himself to catch that sort of thing. Some of the newly rescued synths shut down like that when they get overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar stimuli on the surface. When his own panic attacks get too bad, he’ll also—Deacon shakes off that thought and concentrates on Anna. 

“Do you even know how to throw a punch?” Tommy asks her. 

Anna doesn’t reply. She’s still frozen. Dogmeat whines anxiously at her side, and Deacon steps forward to get Tommy’s attention. 

“Whoa, time out,” he says, but the other man ignores him. 

“You can’t tuck your thumb inside your fingers or you’ll break it,” Tommy continues. 

“Listen, my guy.” Deacon grabs his arm. “You wanted to shut up twenty seconds ago." 

Tommy shakes him off and shoves him back. Deacon allows himself to be shoved, voluntarily backing up a few steps. Even Dogmeat has slunk several paces away from Anna. When the animals start clearing out of an area, that’s when some bad shit is about to roll through, but that ignorant jar of mayonnaise Tommy probably thought he was breaking through to Anna, deliberately baiting her like this to get a glimpse of her true character. 

Deacon draws his gun, safety off, because he’s seen her true character use an impaled raider as a human shield while she calmly slaughtered over three dozens of his buddies. 

“Make sure to keep your wrist straight too,” Tommy says. 

Anna exhales, and Deacon raises his gun. Her eyes are so flat they could be a courser’s, nothing in them but an objective to kill. Deacon momentarily imagines she’s going to literally rip Tommy’s head off, right before everything happens all at once and his processor kicks into overdrive to slow things down for him. 

“—so—" 

Anna moves forward, one clawed gauntlet sweeping up, but Deacon can’t shoot her. First of all, because he doubts his little 10mm is going to have enough stopping power to do anything other than piss her off even more. 

“—you—" 

Secondly, she’s also the only solid lead he’s had on the Institute in decades, and he can’t toss that away for Tommy Whispers. But he can’t let her bludgeon a fellow agent to death right in front of him, either. 

“—don’t—" 

Deacon takes aim and shoots Tommy in the leg. The other man yelps and drops to the ground, falling beneath the swipe of Anna’s clawed gauntlet that would have taken at least half his face off. Her eyes snap over to Deacon, who quickly raises his hands, gun hanging loosely from his right hand. He slumps down a little and looks at her chin, rather than making directly eye contact. He wants every nonverbal signal he sends her to broadcast _not a threat_. 

“You shot me!” Tommy screams. “You shot me in the fucking leg!" 

“Yeah, sooo sorry about that,” Deacon drawls, keeping his voice soft and slow. “I’ll keep you in my prayers." 

Anna doesn’t laugh again, but her body language relaxes a bit at the snark. Deacon decides to run with it, anything to draw her out of whatever cold dead place she’s retreated to inside herself. 

“You, you—“ Tommy’s eyes are wide and a little crazed. “You fucking shot me!" 

“Yes, well, I’m just a bumbling Diamond City guard, bless my little heart,” Deacon replies. 

Anna cocks her head, looking at him like she’s just now noticed he’s there. He keeps talking, low and steady, just keep talking. 

“And listen, this is like, totally the first time it’s ever just gone off like that, I swear. Normally, you see, I have the opposite problem, where I can’t shoot at all, or even, you know, within the metaphor—" 

“Goddammit!” Tommy shouts, clutching his leg. 

Deacon keeps his internal wince off his face, hoping that the other man’s screaming won’t set Anna off again. But her eyes look completely clear and alert now as she glances back and forth between the two of them. Dogmeat draws her attention away however when he whimpers. Poor puppy probably doesn’t understand what just happened. Anna walks over to him and crouches down, and Deacon uses the distraction to kneel beside Tommy and take out a stimpack. 

“You’re the goddamn worst,” Tommy hisses at him. “I swear to god, Dez is gonna hear about this the _instant_  we get back to HQ." 

“Yeah, you tell her all about it,” Deacon says absently as he rolls Tommy’s pant leg up to inject the stim right next to the bullet wound. “This is through and through, so—" 

“ _You’re_ going to be through,” Tommy snaps back. “When I tell Dez, you’re finished! Done! You deliberately shot another agent—" 

The huffing growl of a deathclaw echoing down the streets cuts him off. Of course they couldn’t just stand around in the middle of the ruins screaming at each other without drawing the attention of _something_. Deacon instinctively hunkers down and scans the intersection. He only has a clear sight line down two of the four streets that lead to them. Not that a little junk is going to stop a deathclaw. He makes eye contact with Anna, who jerks her head to indicate he needs to come over to her, but he hesitates. Tommy can’t run like this. She stabs two fingers in his direction, then down at the ground in front of her. _You, come here._

Deacon obeys, praying that she has a plan. Anna leads him over to the nearest building while Tommy whisper-shouts for them to come back, _you can’t just leave me here!_ Deacon tries to block it out. Anna jumps up and grabs the edge of a fire escape that’s lost the stairs leading up to the platform, barely making any noise as she effortlessly pulls her body up with just her arms. Deacon doesn’t have time to be impressed by her upper body strength before she leans back over and points to Dogmeat, then holds her arms out. Deacon scoops up Dog and lifts him up,  the dog’s hind legs kicking against his face and head until Anna hefts the dog up onto the platform with her. She holds a hand out to Deacon next. 

“You know what, fuck you!” Tommy yells, trying to drag himself over to the nearest debris pile to get some kind of cover. “I always knew you were a coward!" 

Another growling huff sounds nearby, and Deacon grabs Anna’s hand. She lifts his entire body weight with one arm, yanking him up onto the platform with her. There isn’t much room between the three of them, and the metal creaks in a way that sets his nerves on edge. Anna hasn’t let go of his hand, and he thinks maybe they’re having some sort of fucked up moment, about to watch a man get ripped apart by a deathclaw right below them, before she tugs his hand over to Dogmeat’s collar and makes his fingers curl around it. 

“Stay,” she orders. 

Deacon isn’t sure which of them she’s talking to. Stay? What, like he’s going to go somewhere? He’ll lay down some cover fire for Tommy, but he’s going to do it from here or the safety of the roof, thank you very much. Maybe Tommy can wedge himself into someplace small, where the deathclaw can’t get at him. 

Yeah, and maybe the Brotherhood will sweep down in a vertibird to save them all and hand out free cookies. 

“We can’t just leave him there,” Deacon hisses to Anna. 

She shrugs. “Bait." 

Bait. Like she _wants_  the deathclaw to get closer, like she's the one hunting it. 

Anna glances over at him and grins, all feral teeth. “Strategy, right?" 

The deathclaw emerges from a side street, sniffing the air curiously as it scents Tommy’s blood. Deacon can see the second it spots the wounded man, tail swishing excitedly behind it as the monster crouches down. He feels Anna move next to him, but when he looks over, she’s gone. She lands on the street below with a sound, slowly circling around to get behind the deathclaw’s line of sight while it’s still focused on Tommy. Dogmeat is smart not to risk drawing the beast’s attention by whimpering, but he’s a shaking bundle of fear pressed up against Deacon’s side. This was Anna’s plan. Get her dog in a safe spot, leave Deacon to protect him, then fight the deathclaw herself. 

Just as he realizes that, the deathclaw springs forward, crossing the intersection in a flat second. Tommy screams as the beast scoops him up, claws digging into his flesh as it shakes him. Anna is still silently creeping up on the monster from behind, but Tommy is about to be a Whiny Lad Snack Cake for the deathclaw _right now_ , so Deacon fires off a few shots at it as a distraction. The deathclaw whips around, but it spots Anna, not him. 

And now he’s blown Anna’s approach. The only good news is it drops Tommy when it spots her, a possible challenger for its midday snack. At least that leaves Tommy safe for the moment as the beast hunkers down on the defensive. Although bleeding, knocked out, and possibly broken on the ground may not be the best definition for “safe." 

Anna and the deathclaw have a little stare down for a moment as they size each other up. Deacon can’t believe he’s seeing this. Shit, maybe those reports he’d heard about the deathclaw in Concord were right. He still half expects a tumbleweed to blow across the intersection and some Great Narrator in the Sky to play old Western music like this is a cheap B-list action movie. 

What he doesn’t expect is for Anna to charge the deathclaw. From the way it hesitates, Deacon doubts the deathclaw expected that either. That big asshole is an apex predator, and it’s probably never been deliberately attacked by something else in its entire life. By the time it realizes what’s happening and takes a swipe at Anna, she’s already ducking under the belated blow and circling behind the monster. 

The next thing Deacon sees is Anna vaulting over the deathclaw’s back, thighs clamped tight around its neck as it thrashes its head. One hand hand grabs onto a horn to hold herself steady, her left gauntlet up in the air for a split second like a cowgirl riding a bucking broncho, but then she brings the claws down to gouge across the monster’s left eye. It bellows out an enraged roar and drops to the ground in an attempt to crush Anna beneath its weight, but she jumps free and rolls, coming back up to her feet several paces away. 

Dogmeat stops shivering in fear at Deacon’s side, and his ears perk up as he watches his mistress. In a fistfight against a deathclaw, Anna has just drawn first blood. No one back at HQ is ever going to believe this, and that’s so unfair. The one time he’s going to have a wild story that’s actually true, but he knows Desdemona is just going to roll her eyes like usual. 

Back on the ground, Anna waits for the deathclaw to charge her this time. She stays still until it’s practically on top of her before she uses its momentum to throw it to the side. The beast’s claws dig into her mail suit and drag her down to the ground with it, but she stays on top and gets in two good slashes against the deathclaw’s snout and neck before it tosses her off of it. Her back slams against the side of a rusted out truck, and she drops to her hands and knees on the ground, the breath probably knocked out of her. 

“Hey,” Deacon shouts, drawing the deathclaw’s attention while Anna is down. “Yeah, you! Your mother was gecko! I bet she was a class pet for sixth graders!" 

The deathclaw hesitates, backing up and hunkering down again with a growl. Deacon knows he isn’t big enough to pose as a threat like Anna does, and he’s not on the ground where the deathclaw could chase him down like prey. The smartest thing to do would be to rip Anna apart while she’s down, but the big bad lizard isn’t used to being shouted at by little humans that should be prey and retreats in confusion to figure out if this fight is even worth it. 

“She was probably named something stupid, like Magitha, and died because some snot-nosed little brat without a bedtime named Brad forgot to turn her heat lamp on!" 

Dogmeat joins him, barking out abuse in doggy-language to keep the deathclaw’s attention on them so it won’t notice Anna getting back to her feet. The beast finally turns around enough that Deacon has a clear shot at its weak underbelly, and he empties the rest of his clip shooting at it. The deathclaw stumbles back with another roar, swiping at the air like it thinks it can swat the bullets away, but Deacon is out and has to take a moment to reload. The spare clip is in his hand when the deathclaw charges at the building itself, slamming into the concrete side hard enough to rattle the fire escape. Looks like he found a way to make himself more of a threat than Anna after all. Whoops. 

Deacon fumbles with the clip and the gun as shrieking metal accompanies the platform dipping down. One of them drops to the sloping bottom of the platform and slides over the edge to clatter on the ground. 

It’s the gun. Deacon stares down at his hands in disbelief. He dropped the gun, but oh thank god he held onto the clip, way to go hands! 

The deathclaw bashes itself into the side of the building again, and the platform tilts down even further. Dogmeat’s nails click against the metal floor as he scrabbles to shove himself up in the high corner, hiding behind Deacon. 

_Not good, not good, not--_

*******

Anna likes fighting deathclaws. They're a good match for her, and a safe way to take out her anger issues without slipping back into bad murder habits. The first few minutes of the fight are fun. She can’t tackle this deathclaw like she did the last one, so she ducks under its arms and circles around its back. Then she’s up on top of it, thighs clamped around its neck while she gouges out its left eye. Like those mechanical bulls in cheap touristy bars.

She jumps off before it can buck her off and rolls to her feet. The deathclaw staggers back, its tail thrashing in anxiety behind it. Most predators don’t fuck with things that fight back. They need to conserve energy because each meal requires chasing something down and killing it. Any other animal would have decided this fight wasn’t worth the effort and retreated by now. 

Anna figures this one must be a young buck to be so aggressive. Or maybe deathclaws have been kicking it at the top of the food chain for so long they’ve evolved to be cocky. Anna waits to see what this one will decide to do. She’ll let it go if it wants to find easier prey, but she’s hoping for a fight. 

She gets it. The deathclaw must decide it can’t tolerate another predator like her in its territory and rushes at her. Anna waits until the last second, then steps forward into the beast’s charge. In one uninterrupted move, she gets her arms around it and uses its own momentum to twist and throw it to the side. The beast’s own arms catch her too, talons digging into her mail and dragging her down with it. Anna expected that though and moves with the fall to stay on top. Doesn’t mean shit how big something is as long as its on the ground. 

Anna swipes across the deathclaw's snout and digs too gashes into its neck before it swipes her off of it. The blow practically sends her flying and her back crashes against the side of a rusted out truck. Turns out deathclaws hit a lot harder when she isn’t in power armor. Anna blinks at the ground, her chest struggling to take in air after having the wind knocked out of her. Killing untrained and drugged out raiders had been easy. Maybe she’d gotten a little overconfident after that. Maybe she also wasn’t in her twenties anymore and had just given birth less than a year ago. 

Anna makes a little disgusted noise at herself and pushes back up to her hands and knees. She used to get hit harder than this for putting soup cans away with the labels facing the wrong direction. This is nothing. She’s fine. 

Some sort of yelling is going on in the background but the noise doesn’t register with her until she hears gunshots. A full clip. Anna staggers to her feet in time to see the deathclaw charge at the building with the fire escape. The metal platform jolts and tilts to the side. 

Dogmeat whimpers. Anna has no idea what Deacon was yelling, but she damn sure just heard her dog made a sound of fear. The ice cold comes rushing back in. It’s hard to breathe again. For the first time since coming out of the vault, she feels fear. She can’t watch another innocent life that depends on her be taken away. 

_Thump!_

Anna slams her metal gauntlets back against the side of the truck. The deathclaw turns to see what the noise was. She does it again, holding the beast’s gaze. A clear challenge. Engaging in a drawn out fight like this should not be worth it for the meal of three humans and a dog. Any sort of prolonged fight is a waste of energy for predators. The deathclaw should be turning tail to find an easier meal by now. 

_Thump! Thump!_

The deathclaw isn’t frightened off. Shit, maybe she presented too much of a challenge. Maybe it thinks this is a dispute over territory now and it has to kill her to keep its hunting ground. Anna bashes the truck again with a frustrated growl. Fine then. Either she’ll kill the deathclaw and Dog will be safe, or Deacon will have time to take Dog and run while the deathclaw eats her. Her objective is accomplished either way. 

_Thump! Thump! Thump!_

The deathclaw gives in to the bait and charges at Anna. She keeps up the pounding, urging the beast on. Hopefully Deacon will take Dog with him when he runs. Or the dog will be smart enough to jump down himself. The deathclaw charging Anna is almost secondary to her thoughts. She waits until the last second to hop up onto the truck’s roof and push to her feet. The monster’s talons claw into the side of the truck where she was a second ago. She lands a hard right hook to the side of its face, then two quick jabs before it uses its grip on the truck to toss the whole thing to the side. 

Anna hits the ground again. That hurt a lot less in power armor with a helmet to protect her head from cracking against the concrete. The truck crashes down in front of Deacon’s building, but she barely hears it over the ringing in her ears. 

Вставай. Вставай, теперь! 

She needs to get up. Her reflexes aren’t like they used to be. There isn’t time. Protect her head and stomach. Buy enough time for Deacon and Dog to get away. Anna flips over onto her stomach and curls up into a ball just before the deathclaw stomps down on her legs. Its talons rake across her back, trying to rip open her mail. The metal links are small enough that the claws can’t find purchase. 

Anna keeps her hands locked across the back of her head, metal gauntlets protecting her skull. She estimates she has a few more seconds before the deathclaw gives up this approach and starts biting. It’ll only take one well placed chomp to take her head off. 

“Hey!" 

Anna cracks her eyes open, peeking up to see Deacon on the ground. Waving and yelling instead of _running away_. Instead of getting her dog to safety, which was the whole fucking point of all of this. 

“You know what I said about your mother?” Deacon shouts. “Well, your father was a turtle!" 

Anna resists the urge to let out another growling huff of frustration. The deathclaw clearly won’t be scared off, and all Deacon’s doing is drawing its attention. Not being mauled is nice while its distracted but she doesn’t want him encouraging the monster to charge back over to where her dog is. 

“Yeah, a turtle.” 

Deacon keep his shoulders hunched and makes a quick jerk to the left, like he’s going to bolt. The deathclaw instinctively takes a step toward him in preparation of chasing. Everything about the small human’s body language is screaming _prey_  right now. 

“Some asshole named Craig in a Buick ran him over,” Deacon continues muttering to himself, even though he already has the deathclaw’s attention. 

Anna takes the brief respite to mentally catalogue her injuries. It’s hard to determine where she’s hurt and how badly when her mind doesn’t process pain. Breathing is difficult. Cracked and broken ribs, likely. She subtly tries to roll her shoulders. Both limbs appear operational. Tensing her knees discovers her left leg doesn’t respond. 

Anna glances up again to see Dog huddled in the highest corner of the fire escape. Did she get a dog with a fear of heights? And what’s Deacon doing fucking around on the ground anyway? He’s clearly not trying to escape. The deathclaw makes a huff that nearly sounds exasperated above her. Anna silently agrees with the sentiment even as she braces herself for the next blow. 

Deacon lets out a whoop of joy. The deathclaw pauses for a moment, then decides to ignore the smaller human in favor of trying to get at the meat of the dead one. Anna wouldn’t mind playing dead, as long as Deacon _gets her dog away from here_. 

Instead he fires three rounds into the monster’s back. Why didn’t he do that earlier? Did he not have his gun until now? This is why Anna doesn’t work with a partner and she doesn’t trust men with anything. 

“It was just for fun,” Deacon yells. “Running over your father." 

The deathclaw snarls back but doesn’t take the bait. Predators don’t abandon something already dead to chase after live prey. They already have their meal, so there’s no motivation. Anna concentrates on seeming especially dead while also attempting to telepathically tell Deacon to shut the fuck up. 

“Your turtle-father. He smelled like old berries!" 

That’s not even how the line went. Anna is willing to risk mauling and death, so long as Deacon will get her fucking dog and run the fuck away. Проклятье. 

“Craig did it because his parents didn’t hug him enough,” Deacon keeps yelling. “He was a very lonely child!" 

The deathclaw snorts air out of its nose and turns its attention back to Anna. Good. Now Deacon can— 

—fire two more rounds into the monster’s back. They ping off uselessly. If the deathclaw doesn’t eat them both, Anna is going to kill him. With a desk fan. 

The deathclaw lets out a warning roar, but still doesn’t abandon Anna. Deacon hesitates, then shoots a double tap directly into the beast’s face. Those bullets ricochet off its thick skull too but they succeed in pissing it off. The deathclaw roars again right before it charges. Deacon’s whole aura lurches back in fear instead of reloading another clip. 

Anna comes to the incredulous conclusion that he doesn’t _have_  another clip. The deathclaw is going to kill him. Then she won’t have a guide, which will slow down her search for Valentine and in turn slow down her search for Shaun. Her brain shifts gears from Dog to Shaun, and she pushes herself to her feet despite her left leg threatening to buckle. 

Deacon runs away from the building with the deathclaw chasing after him. His aura jerks to the side. He’s about to dart to his left, past the beaten up truck. Anna begins running in that direction just as he switches directions too. It’s difficult to keep her left leg straight enough to run. She’s dimly aware of her knee threatening to give out. Luckily, without a sense of pain to stop her, she’s free to make bad decisions regardless of the consequences on her body. 

Like running on a broken leg. Jumping up onto the bed of the truck, then the roof. Making a flying leap to tackle the deathclaw around its neck as it runs by. Almost two hundred and fifty pounds of her dead weight is enough to drag the beast to the ground. Anna wraps her arms around its neck, struggling to keep it locked in a chokehold while the monster thrashes. She’s not sure she can pin it long enough to choke it out. She’ll just have to find out. 

Then someone presses up against her back and Anna really starts to panic. Wrestling a deathclaw is fine, but she hates to be touched.

“I saw a diagram once,” Deacon says. 

He punches through the remnants of the deathclaw’s left eye that Anna gouged out earlier, staying hunkered down behind her as much as he can to avoid the snapping jaw. They both have to duck when the beast gets one arm stretched up far enough to swipe at their heads. 

“Think I can—" He grunts and pushes his whole forearm into the eye socket. “—get its brain." 

Anna tries to tune him out and focus on holding the monster’s head still. Deacon twists his arm with a squelch and another grunt. The deathclaw’s whole body jerks and suddenly drops limp. He pulls his arm back out, holding a fistful of grey matter. His forearm is slick with blood and other fluids up to his elbow. He has to look away to suppress a gag. 

“That’s the second nastiest thing I’ve ever fisted."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls don't correct me on deathclaw anatomy, just let me have that stupid fucking punchline
> 
> up next: Anna cuddles with Dogmeat and busts Nick out of mob-jail
> 
>  **edit:** I don't really like it when fics provide translation right next to the foreign language within a story because I think it looks weird and interrupts the flow of the narrative. plus, I try to make most of what Anna says in Russian clear through context and I figured anyone who was really interested could just use google translate. but it's come to my attention that my grammar isn't always stellar because I'm just learning the language, and google isn't great at correctly translating slang / swears / casual language, so the translations it provides aren't always correct. so here are the translations for this chapter, in the order that the Russian appears
> 
> *Get up. Get up, now!
> 
> *Goddammit.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon finds giant foam fingers and uses them to make finger guns at Anna. that's the highlight of this chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual, a warning for violence, although it's actually not so graphic this time. Deacon requests maybe they don't murder their way to Skinny Malone and Anna indulges him.
> 
> also, maybe a warning for a very minor line of dialogue where Deacon refers to himself dressing as a woman and Brotherhood soldiers being an asshole about it. he's genderqueer in my fic and will later have scenes as a woman, so I don't think this falls into a "man in a dress" transphobic trope, and in true Deacon fashion, he's dealing with a bad thing through humor. just wanted to give people a heads up anyway, in case that sort of thing might still feel squicky to you

Deacon sits sprawled on the concrete and surveys the damage. Out of ammo. One brains and blood splattered arm that itches as the fluid starts to dry. Tommy lays on the other side of the intersection, presumably unconscious. Ironically, considering she did the majority of the fighting, the only one who seems unaffected is Anna. Her sole focus is checking over Dogmeat for injuries, without a word of complaint about her own wounds or any sort of acknowledgement of pain at all. 

“So, go team, right?” he says, breaking the silence. “Pretty solid win we just pulled off." 

Anna ignores him, but he’s pretty used to carrying conversations on his own. 

“Dogmeat, buddy, how ya feeling?” he asks. 

The poor dog has stopped shaking with fear now that the deathclaw is dead and he’s back on the ground with Anna. He wags his tail and barks happily in response to his name. 

“Atta boy,” Deacon says. “I like that moxie. How’s my favorite general doing?" 

Anna stands up to glare down at him—although it’s not like she needed to do that to be taller than him. She stabs an accusatory finger in his direction. 

“Kill stealer,” she growls. “Twice." 

Twice? Yeah, she’s technically right because he did kill the raider boss back at Thickett Excavations, but she shouldn’t know that was him. He hasn’t been quite as subtle as he usually is though, especially not with Tommy fucking about and nearly blowing his cover. If she’s had the sense of being followed on the trip down here, she may just be accusing him because he was the first to make contact with her. 

“Should you really be putting weight on that?” Deacon asks, pointing to her leg and turning the conversation back on her. 

Anna looks down like she’s just now noticing the leg of her blue vault suit is stained nearly black with blood below where her mail skirt ends.  

“Ебля,” she says flatly. 

Deacon can’t really speak Russian, but he knows how to swear in just about every language still around, and he snorts at the deadpan _fuck._ She leans back against the truck to favor her injured leg, but looks back at him at the sound. He doesn’t know enough that pretending not to understand her would be particularly useful the way it might be if he were actually fluent, and he’d like to get her back on his side, away from accusations of him being a “kill stealer." 

“Вы говорите по-русски?” Anna asks him. 

Deacon grimaces and waggles a flat hand in a so-so gesture. “Немного. Enough to answer that question, cuss someone out, and say please don’t shoot, I’m pregnant. Do you want me to look at that? I’ve got a stim or two left in my pack around here someone, and I’m pretty sure you need one." 

She regards him for a moment with a blank face. “Don’t need your help." 

“Your leg can’t—" 

“Is fine,” she insists. 

Deacon starts to gesture to it, then winces when he catches sight of his bloody arm. He stands slowly, making sure not to startle her as she keeps her eyes locked on him. 

“Just gonna clean this off,” he says. 

Deacon finds his pack in the middle of the intersection where he left it after treating Tommy. He should really go check on Tommy. The man could be bleeding out or brain dead, but frankly, Anna is top priority here. If Tommy dies, he’ll chalk it up to the idiot’s own fault for deliberately provoking Anna and then screaming like a big baby after one little gunshot wound, which is what attracted the deathclaw in the first place. 

Anna idly pets Dogmeat and Deacon wipes off his arm with the rag he stole from her workshop a few days ago. He pretends like he’s focused on that instead of watching her watch him out of the corner of his eye and she does the same. Her leg is probably in bad shape, but fresh blood isn’t dripping on the ground, so the wound can’t be too bad. He was literally built to identify and process even the smallest of micro-expressions, but not a flicker of pain shows on her face or in her body language. He almost suspects she literally didn’t notice her leg was that badly injured until he pointed it out to her. 

Since she’s apparently not at risk of keeling over, Deacon finally checks on Tommy next. Still has a pulse, just knocked out. Pretty badly scraped and bruised up, and Deacon thinks he spots the remnants of a puncture wound in the other man’s side, but he still had a stim pack coursing through his veins when the deathclaw picked him up, and it looks like that’s already repaired the worst of the damage. Enough that he hasn’t bled out at least. 

Anna doesn’t move a muscle to help when he starts dragging Tommy into the nearest building that isn’t boarded up. Deacon doesn’t really blame her or feel bad for accidentally knocking Tommy’s head into the doorframe. He leaves the other man in a closet with the rest of the can of clean water he used to wipe off his arm and some bandages in case his wounds start bleeding again by the time he wakes up. Anna looks bored and unconcerned when he comes back out, not at all like someone who nearly just had their spine crushed by a deathclaw stomping on them. 

“So what can I get you, boss?” Deacon asks as he walks back over to Anna. “A stimpack, fresh water, back rub?" 

Her eyes narrow and even with the broken leg, she subtly shifts her stance to the defensive. He’d seen the way she maintained careful distance from the settlers at Sanctuary, even training Dogmeat to act as a buffer between her and physical contact. Deacon slows his approach and stops a comfortable distance away with his palms spread and an easy grin. 

“Three feet minimum of personal space?” he tries again. 

Anna’s body language relaxes ever so slightly and she breathes out a little bit harder through her nose in what could have been a faint snort of amusement. All of her reactions are so small, barely there flickers that disappear in an instant. The only other people that are this hard to read are freshly wiped synths who don’t know _how_  to have emotions. 

“Dog is fine,” she says. 

Deacon blinks at her, glancing at the happy dog panting at her side and then back over to her very obviously broken leg. “That’s … great. But do _you_ need a stimpack?" 

Just like that, all his progress slips away as Anna’s guarded expression snaps back into place. 

“Я корошо." 

Yeah, корошо. Perfect, just fucking perfect. Now he’s backslid all the way back to getting two word answers in Russian. All for suggesting her broken and literally still bleeding leg might possibly need a stimpack. 

But Deacon’s had plenty of experience with pushing down his personal irritation and negotiating his way out of situations, and he’s determined to do the same with Anna. He just needs to figure out how she works. 

“How about a trade,” he suggests. 

Her head slowly tilts to the side, just a fraction, as she considers. Now he’s getting somewhere. Most of his information on other nationalities comes from his internal database of pre-war pop culture references, thousands of hours of media stored in his brain to give him the fullest sampling of human emotions and interactions possible, and Deacon is certain ninety percent of it is sexist, racist, stereotyping bullshit. But it’s all he’s got to go on, and it seems like the Russians had an overly bureaucratic government that mostly ran on bribes, so he’s not surprised that Anna is wary of gifts offered with no mention of what he’ll expect in return but open to direct negotiation. 

“I know you getting Valentine out of this mess doesn’t have anything to do with me, but he’s a friend of mine,” Deacon tells her. “So how about I take a look at your wounds, fix you up with a stim, and in return, just … don’t be a dick about the synth thing, yeah? No insensitive questions, don’t call him an it, none of that bullshit, please." 

Anna considers his offer, then gives him a curt nod. She stays still while he closes the last few feet to kneel in front of her and even allows him to roll up the leg of her vault suit to get a look at her knee. Her shin is broken just beneath it, punctured out through the skin. The joint doesn’t look too hot either. He’s surprised she seems so coherent with a wound like that, much less on her feet and standing. 

Deacon glances up at her. “I’m going to have to set this so the stim can fix it up right." 

“Да." 

Still getting responses in Russian, but at least she’s letting him help her. Dogmeat presses closer to sniff at Anna’s leg and whine, but he sits back at her command. Deacon gives him a sympathetic look. 

“Yeah, I know, buddy,” he says. 

Anna glances between the two of them suspiciously. “What?" 

“He doesn’t like it when you’re hurt,” Deacon explains. "It makes him worried." 

Anna actually seems to think about that for a moment before patting Dogmeat’s head. “I can walk for twenty minutes on a broken leg." 

Before what? She passes out? Fucks up her leg enough she literally can’t move it anymore? And she says that as if the dog will understand and be reassured by that statement. As if that doesn’t have nasty implications about her life in the supposedly “good old days” of pre-war times. Still, it got her back to speaking English and even a full sentence. 

“All right.” Deacon carefully places his hands on her leg. “You ready?" 

She nods, and he begins a counting up to three. At two, he pushes the bone back into place. Anna grunts, but otherwise doesn’t react, not even to yell at him for not going on three. He’s starting to wonder if she can feel pain at all. 

“Next time,” Anna begins. 

Deacon pauses with the stim hovering above her calf, surprised that she’s speaking to him without prompting. 

“Take Dog and run." 

He turns back to her leg and sticks her with the stim. “Sorry, boss. Not going to happen." 

“Yes, will happen,” she retorts. 

“Listen.” Deacon stands up and wipes her blood off on his jeans. “I’m a coward and an asshole, but even I wouldn’t just leave you there." 

She looks him up and down, practically sneering her verdict. “Good person." 

He doesn’t have to fake his shock. “What, _I’m_ a good person?" 

“You shut Nate’s eyes,” Anna says, voice absolutely certain. 

Deacon pauses, waiting for her to continue, then says, “Sorry, who? I mean, I know a Nate down in Rivet City, but that’s a long way from here, so I don’t think—" 

“Stop.” She waves off his denial with an irritated scoff and taps her Pipboy. “Was kind gesture." 

The Pipboy. Shit. That’s what the security cameras were broadcasting to, and fuck—that’s why the Vault was just sitting open in the first place. She left it open like a cardboard box propped up with a stick and a bowl full of “free chems” sitting underneath, and he’d walked right into it. Sure, he’d known it had to be some sort of trap, but he’d been expecting the Institute to have something rigged up, not Anna herself. 

“I mean,” Deacon spreads his arms and shrugs. “Yeah, sure. I was real nice to this Nate guy. That was my save the cat moment, closing his uh … eyes? Oh wait, fuck. You mean like what you do to dead people?" 

But Anna doesn’t buy his innocent act for a second. “Next time,” she repeats. “Take Dog. Run away. Да?" 

“How about—" 

“No." 

Anna doesn’t even wait for a reply. She just shoots him down and bends over to fix the leg of her suit. Deacon doesn’t let it discourage him. 

“So the compromise would be—" 

She straightens back up with a glare. “No." 

“I get Dogmeat to a place that's actually safe …" 

“Yes,” she says. “The end." 

“And then—" 

“Нет." 

“I come back and help you,” he finishes. 

Anna crosses her arms and wordlessly glowers at him. 

“Look, I’m not saying you need to be rescued or anything,” he tells her. “After seeing you literally take out a deathclaw with just your hands, I think you could have figured it out without my help." 

Her glower lessens to her usual default blank face, and he considers it some sort of fucked up progress to have made it back to where he started at the beginning of the conversation. 

“Just think of me as your support.” He shoots her a grin. “You tank, I heal." 

She cocks her head again like she recognizes that reference. He’s so used to no one knowing what he’s talking about, he doesn’t even bother to censor the pre-war references anymore. 

“Fine,” she finally agrees. “Leave now?" 

Deacon picks up his pack and slings it over his shoulder. “Sure thing. Let’s blow this lemonade stand." 

“Popsicle." 

“Mmm, no. I think it’s lemonade. I ran a lemonade stand once." 

Anna sighs and brushes past him, walking away without looking back. Deacon grins and follows after her, Dogmeat trotting between them. 

“It’s tough to run a lemonade stand without any actual lemons, you know, but I made it work. Mutfruit just wasn’t the same, but I think the radiation gave it a nice little kick."

*******

“So would now be a good time to mention I’m out of ammo?” Logan asks.

Anna resists the urge to roll her eyes. She knows he’s out of ammo. It’s annoying, but not a real issue. She’ll take out any threats herself. He’s only here to act as her new tour guide and watch her dog. 

“And hey, maybe we can use less than lethal force going through here.” He raises his plans when she gives him an unimpressed look. “Just a suggestion. You know before I met you, I went whole days without murdering anything, honest." 

“You’ve only seen me kill one deathclaw,” Anna retorts. 

Logan doesn’t admit to being at Thickett Excavations in order to correct her. “And was it ever a sight, boss,” he says instead. “Anyway, I’m more of a talker than a lover and nowhere near a fighter at all, so if you can keep the body count low, I might be able to negotiate old Nick out of this situation." 

Anna shrugs. “Fine." 

She strides out into the old square without waiting for a response. Dog keeps close, on alert for threats. Nothing other than them moves in the quiet. A week ago this had just been a regular subway station in a nice square surrounded by busy shops. 

Two months ago she’d taken Shaun on a weekend outing to walk the Freedom Trail. Nate had called it the “Tourist Trail” and complained until he found a group of sorority girls walking the path, then spent the rest of the afternoon impressing them with his bullshit military stories and namedropping the other B-list celebrities he knew. Anna was glad he’d found someone else to talk at so she could practice speaking quiet Russian to Shaun in peace while she told him about all the historical markers. Shaun hadn’t understood of course, but she’d bought him a little stuffed— 

“General?” Logan asks softly. 

Dog whines and shows his concern too by nudging her hand with his wet nose. Anna blinks and shoves those memories away. They’re irrelevant at the moment. She gives Dog a short pat but ignores Logan’s concerned look. Her objective right now is to find Detective Valentine. She eases open the door to the subway and slips silently down the stairs. Logan and Dog move just as quietly as they follow her. 

Sounds like at least two people in the room ahead. Killing is a waste of potential resources. If Logan can negotiate for Valentine’s release, maybe even part on good terms with Malone, Anna would prefer that. There may come a time when a business deal or an alliance with the Italians could be useful. 

But not killing anyone in the meantime is going to be tricky. 

_Play along_ , she mouths to Logan. If she takes him anywhere else, she should teach him a bit of sign language. Not that hers is anything other than a muddle mess of slang, ASL, and standard English Sign Language that her and Kotku dug up out of old books in the library. 

Anna pushes those memories down too and focuses on the present. She’s not very good at recognizing facial expressions, but even she can tell Logan’s surprised when she slaps a hand against the wall and starts moaning. 

“Yeah, just like that, Logan,” she says. “Oh, Logan!" 

Two hundred years ago, the Italians had a thing for mini guns. Deathclaws she can punch. But not bullets. Plus her leg might break again if she gets distracted and puts weight on it for too long. Running and kicking are no longer options. 

Getting the mobsters to walk their dumbasses into the little room at the bottom of the stairs to be ambushed will make this a hell of a lot easier. 

Meanwhile, Logan stares at her with wide eyes. Anna’s facial expression stays blank as she lets out another theatrical moan. It’s been nearly twenty years since she last lived with Kotku, but she can still mimic the way the other woman faked it for her johns. 

“Lo-lo-lo-looo … _gan._ " 

Stutter the first syllable, draw out the middle, sigh the end. Kotku had it down to an art. 

“Damn, baby,” he says, voice pitched loud enough to carry. “You always come like that?" 

Anna frowns. She can mimic the moans and there’s a formula for the name, but she doesn’t actually know how to “talk dirty.” What do horny straight women even say? 

“Yes,” Anna answers simply. 

Logan waves his right hand in a universal _go on_  gesture. Dog looks at him and cocks his head like he wants to play this fun new game too. She quickly signs _quiet_ to him, and he silently lays down out of the way just like they practiced. But now the pause is starting to grow too long. 

“I … like dick in my mouth,” Anna says with a shrug, almost as a question. 

She knows it’s too stilted. Monotone. But the horny straight women in Nate’s holotapes never bothered to be much more convincing than that. They were just props for men to jack off in and on. What they said didn’t matter. 

“Oh yeah, me too,” Logan immediately replies, carrying the scene. “Especially ghoul dick. Damn, I wish there were two big strong ghouls around for both our mouths." 

Anna doesn’t know what a ghoul is, but Logan’s response is clearly in line with the bad porno parody she started. If a bit heavy handed. She tries to glare at him, but his grin threatens to draw out an answering smile from her. 

“Yes, that would be optimal,” she says. 

Logan locks his jaw to visibly stifle a burst of laughter. Now she does glare at him. That wasn’t funny. 

“That would be the most efficient number of dicks to—" 

One of the mobsters walks through the open doorway in the middle of Anna’s explanation, eager and unsuspecting. “Hey, if it’s some thick, strapping ghoul dick ya need—" 

Anna grabs him by the throat and slams him up against the wall. One quick punch drops him. The other man must think his grunt of pain was pleasure because there’s a shout of, “Save a hole for me!”   
   
Anna peeks into the station an sees the second mobster hopping around on one leg with his pants halfway down and minigun sitting on the floor. She gives a sharp whistle to send Dog running after him, knocking him to the floor. His head hits the tile with a crack and he’s out too. 

Logan gives a low whistle. “With his pants down and everything. Poor dumb fuck." 

She crouches down and takes a closer look at the one at her feet. She’d seen … things like this on her way to Diamond City. But they didn’t talk or carry guns. She assumed radiation had something to do with turning people into what basically amounted to zombies. 

“Radiation,” Logan confirms. “From when the bombs first dropped usually, but rad storms can do it too. Ruins your chances of being a model, but immortality is a nice perk for the people who don’t have their brains melted." 

So not everyone in her world is dead. Some people she knew might still be alive. Neighbors. Coworkers. Somebody. Anna waits for this knowledge to spark some sort of emotion. 

... 

It doesn’t. 

The closest Anna comes to a feeling is briefly considering that Nate’s parents could still be alive. They were good to her, but finding Shaun is priority. Boris is almost definitely alive. A couple of nukes wouldn’t have been enough to kill him. And she knows both Kotku and Nate are still dead. 

Everyone Anna has ever loved is gone or currently irrelevant. But that’s not anything different from twelve seconds ago. 

“What do you call the zombie ones?” she asks as she loots the ghoul. 

Logan catches the 10mm clip she tosses to him. “Ferals. Where’d you see those?" 

“Cambridge.” Anna stand sup and pets Dog when he trots back over. “Good boy." 

“Yeah? Anything going on down there?" 

Logan’s aura swirls a little faster. Interest? If he’s recruiting for one of the groups with power right now, he probably knows there’s soldiers holed up in the police station. Anna’s encounter with them had been brief, just long enough to hear the remnants of the US Army now called themselves the Brotherhood of Steel. 

The very name pissed her off. The way the Commanding Officer called her “civilian” didn’t help, even if his blunt manner of speaking matched hers. But then the wounded soldier called her dog a dirty mutt and that was it for Anna. 

“Brotherhood,” she says, watching Logan’s aura to gauge his reaction. 

The swirling blues fare up and jump backwards. That reaction usually accompanies the emotion of disgust. If the group Logan works for is competing against the Brotherhood, Anna might be interested in them based on that alone. 

“They really knock your socks off with all that Latin and patriarchy?” Logan asks her. “All right, sorry. That’s leading the witness.” He clears his throat and tries again. “What did you think of them?" 

Anna shrugs. “Fuck the military." 

“I tried, but they just yelled at me a lot,” Logan says with a grin, then mimics a scowl and a deeper voice. “You aren’t a real woman! Where’d you get this fake hair? These tits are tatos!" 

Anna turns away from him and starts searching the rest of the upper station so he won’t see the smile tugging at her lips. Even after all these years, she’s still not comfortable showing emotion in front of other people. Logan is making that difficult though. Why does he have to be so fucking funny? 

She’s not very good at distinguishing between when people are being serious and when they’re exaggerating for dramatic effect. Then they look at her like she’s stupid when she guesses wrong. Just thinking of Logan giving her that look—like she’s a naive toddler too dumb to understand the grown up jokes—makes her stomach clench up. 

“Hey, general!" 

Anna looks over to see Logan has found two giant foam fingers, only slightly tattered. He uses them to shoot finger guns at her with a wide grin and a wink. She does an about face pivot to turn around before he can see her grin. God fucking dammit. 

Dog follows her as she power walks down the hall to the next flight of descending stairs. A moment later, she hears Logan following too. She already knows exactly what happens when funny, charming men smooth talk her into letting her guard down with smiles and empty promises. She has her face schooled into careful neutrality by the time he catches up. 

“So what’s the plan, boss?” Logan asks in a whisper. 

Anna slows down when she hears other people up ahead. She remembers two more platforms before the tunnel for the subway. Plus little rooms off to the side for ticket booths and maintenance workers. There could be any number of mobsters up ahead. Unlike at Thickett Excavations, the wide open spaces of the platform mean the ghouls will all be able to open fire on her at once. Plus, they can pop out of the other room unexpectedly. 

“I can take out two before they know,” she replies. “Dash to the rails. Get down in the groove." 

Logan nods along. “They’ll have to stand right at the edge to shoot down in there. I bet you can take out a few more when they get close. And everyone’s gonna be looking at you, so I might be able to circle around and pop off a couple too." 

Anna gives a light hum of agreement, deliberately not looking at him. She isn’t used to people following her train of thought so well. Normally she’s forced to explain and then explain again and then try another way to communicate how she got from step A to step G while everyone else is still nagging her about step B. 

She mentally shakes off her surprise though. It was a decent plan, but it left out her dog. Anna had only practiced combat with him against a few radroaches and bloodbugs hanging around Sanctuary. It would be most effective to have Dog circle the opposite direction of Logan to hit the mobsters with a two-pronged attack. But he might see her getting shot at and break formation to run over to her. Then she’d have to worry about protecting him instead of drawing all the heavy fire to keep the ghouls’ attention while Logan picked them off. 

But without Dog, it was just the two of them up against maybe a dozen. 

“Sixty percent success rate,” Anna says. “Negotiate. Your percent?" 

“What I put our odds at if I try to talk our way in?” Logan asks, understanding her again without explanation. “Huh. You know, most heavies like you just sort of rush in and wing it." 

Anna’s lip curls back in disgust. She detests people who act without thinking. She likes plans and schedules and statistical odds. What if she ran in without a plan and got gunned down? No one would save Shaun then, just because she didn’t want to think critically for three seconds. 

“All right, so Malone isn’t actually that bad,” Logan tells her. “Him and his boys keep their territory clear of raiders, which makes trading a lot easier for Diamond City. Mostly they just fuck around over territory disputes with the Gunners, and no one wants those assholes to move in. Plus, Valentine and Malone have history." 

He stops and thinks it over. 

“I think I’ve got up to seventy-five percent chance of at least getting us in there to talk this over with Malone. But no promises on how that will actually go." 

That plan sounds less likely to get her dog injured or end in a massive shootout. Anna nods, then nudges his side. 

“Ну, давайте." 

Logan clears his throat and stands up, already raising his hands above his head. “Hey!" 

“What was that?” 

“Who the fuck?" 

A few other mutters and exclamations of surprise echo down the subway tunnel. Anna closes her eyes and tries to separate out the voices. She thinks she can count at least five. Probably more in the second platform up ahead. 

“Please don’t shoot at me, I have business talk Mr. Malone is gonna want to hear,” Logan continues. “Also, the mayor is only paying fifty extra fucking caps to come down here, and I don’t want to die for that." 

“Come out with your hands up,” a mobster orders. 

“Wow, funny you should say that, because I already got my hands nice and cozy on top of my head,” Logan says, slowly walking around the corner. “I think we have a connection, you and I." 

“Shut up. You got anyone with you?" 

“I’m going to assume you want that answered despite your previous order to—“ He cuts off with a yelp. “Yeah, one more, plus a dog. Don’t shoot the dog or you’ll really piss her off." 

“Остаться позади меня,” Anna whispers to Dog. 

They hadn’t practiced the order _behind_  very much, but he follows behind her instead of at her side as she turns the corner too. Six guards. They all immediately heft their guns back up to lock on Anna. She knows she doesn’t exactly give off a friendly first impression. She keeps her hands resting comfortably on the back of her head as she waits for the bullets. 

“Whoa, whoa, hey,” Logan cuts in. “No need for that. This is Anna. She’s just here to make sure my candy ass actually got here instead of becoming a deathclaw chew toy along the way." 

The ghoul in front of them is apparently the highest up on the hierarchy of the little group because he gestures at her with his gun. “What’s with the suit?” 

“Man, you guys really don’t hear anything down here, huh?” Logan shakes his head. “New vault just opened up. Mayor says if Malone cuts out this shit with Valentine, he can get in on the action. Needs a few extra guys to guard the caravans coming down, you know? Got some sweet pre-war tech he doesn’t want the raiders getting at." 

Logan jerks his head up toward Anna’s wrist with the Pip-boy. The ghoul in charge follows the movement, eyes locking on the tech. Then he looks her up and down. His aura is drawn up but still. The auras of the other mobsters hover around them in a similar state of uncertainty. 

“Didn’t know they grew ‘em like that in vaults,” he finally says. 

“Inbreeding,” Logan replies. “One group of people locked up for two hundred years? Bound to happen. It’s not too bad though. Most of them just have funny looking jaws sticking out real far. She doesn’t really talk much. Fist fought a deathclaw on the way down here, that was pretty cool." 

Anna doesn’t react to the inbreeding quip. Before she met Nate or Kotku or even learned how to throw a punch, she’d just been a plain girl living on a church commune where she could connect each family to each other in seven steps or less. So it maybe wasn’t entirely inaccurate. 

“Yeah, sure she did.” The ghoul rolls his eyes. "What’s with the dog?” 

Logan shrugs. “Shit if I know. I haven’t actually been up to the vault or anything. Maybe they had some pups locked up with them. Maybe she found it somewhere. No idea." 

The ghoul thinks about it for a few seconds, then huffs. “Fine. I’ll bring you down to the boss, see what he wants to do with ya. But the broad stays here." 

Logan raises an eyebrow at him. “You want to try explaining that to her?" 

Anna stares straight through the ghoul, her eyes blank and empty. She’s used to people assuming she’s stupid because of her size and difficulty speaking. It’s just another way to get people to underestimate her. 

“Look, boss-man’s probably going to want proof this new vault is legit,” Logan says. “So unless you want to be the one to take that Pip-boy off her wrist, you might as well just let her come down too. She’s cool as long as you’re not mean to the dog." 

The ghoul leans to the side to see Dog sitting behind Anna’s legs. She shifts her stance to block his view and the guns snap back up again. 

“My puppy,” she says in a slow, thick voice. 

“Fuck it,” the ghoul mutters, shaking his head at her. “All right. But she stays cool or I’m putting her down." 

“She’ll be fine,” Logan promises. 

Anna lets her face slide back into the blank look. No emotions, no thoughts flickering behind her eyes. Nothing that would get her hit, back when she was too young and brainwashed to know she could fight back. 

“C’mon then,” the ghoul says. 

He leads them farther down the subway station, into a lower section with construction lights and sacks of cement sporadically scattered across the dirt floor. There’s a vault door in the corner. Only an entire childhood of keeping her head down and devoid of thoughts kept Anna from reacting to that. No one mentioned the Italians were operating out of another vault. Did people survive in there? The subway system didn’t seem nearly airtight enough for that. 

“Hurry up,” the ghoul snaps at her. 

Anna realizes she’s slowed down in the face of the steel door. Logan looks back at her, and his blue aura reaches out for hers even if the rest of his body stays relaxed. She forces down the memories— _decontamination pods, how could she have fallen for such an obvious fucking lie, they’d gotten below ground before the blast hit, of course they didn't have any radiation that needed_ —and picks up the pace. 

They all walk in silence after that. Dog forgets her order to stay behind her and trots along at her side but Anna doesn’t have the heart to order him back into place. Her stomach hurts and her palms sweat. What if she’s expected to talk at some point? She’s shit at negotiating. Shit at communicating in general. What if someone uses sarcasm and she takes them seriously? She’s fucked up thousands of conversations before like that, but she can’t afford to fuck this up. 

“How you doing in there, Valentine?” a new male voice calls out up ahead. 

“No funny business up here, or else,” their ghoul guide tells them. 

"Keep talking, meathead.” A second male voice from the same area. "It’ll give Skinny Malone more time to think about how he’s going to bump you off." 

“Oh yeah, I had an Or Else down south once,” Logan says. “You ever had a Bend and Snap done to you? It needs a banana and a toothpick, and you can actually eat the banana afterwards because it’s only the peel that touches—" 

“The fuck is a banana?” the ghoul growls. 

Anna presses her lips together to keep from smirking. She wonders if her companion even knows where the phrase “bend and snap” came from. He seems like he’d be a fan of Reese Witherspoon, all those old time stars. Really old time now. His humor helps calm her nerves. She won’t need to talk. Logan’s doing enough of that on his own. 

“Really? I saw him writing your name down in that black book of his,” the second male voice says as they come to another small flight of stairs. " _Lousy cheating card shark_ I think were his exact words. Then he struck the name across three times." 

“Don’t let this dick get to you, Dino,” the ghoul tells one of the men at the top of the stairs. “He’s just talking shit." 

“No, no, no,” Dino says. “You don’t understand. Three strikes in the black book? I gotta—wait, who the fuck are they?" 

Logan grins and gives the man a cheery wave. Anna pretends she doesn’t even see him. Dino’s hand goes for the gun at his hip when Dog takes a step closer to go sniff at him. 

“Man, what were you thinking? Bringing a fucking mutt down here?" 

He draws his leg back to kick her dog, and Anna moves without thinking about it. She steps forward and grabs the side of his face to slam his head against the metal wall once, twice, then tosses him over the railing. Nobody kicks her dog. 

There’s a thump behind her. She turns around to see the ghoul dropped to the floor and Logan shaking his hand with a grimace. He might prefer negotiating to violence, but at least he can throw a punch. 

He shakes his head. “Shouldn’t have been mean to the dog." 

“Hey, you,” the second male voice calls from inside the room in front of them. "I don’t know who you are, but we got three minutes before they realize muscles-for-brains ain’t coming back. Get this door open." 

Anna catches a flash of beryl aura with two pinpoints of gold through the round window on her way over to the door. She doesn’t like to stereotype people based on the color of their aura, but she thinks it’s safe to assume this man is another person who prefers talking and non-violence. 

“No worries, Nicky,” Logan yells back. “The calvary is here. Also, the calvary just bruised their knuckles, so you owe them a drink for this." 

“Horses don’t have knuckles, knuckle-head." 

“Nick, I’m hurt. Both metaphorically and literally. I think I sprained my wrist." 

Anna tunes out Logan’s playful complaints as she stares at the terminal hooked up to the door. She builds things. Physical things. Hardware, not software. She turns and sizes up the door. Time for a practical application. 

Two striding steps forward to build momentum, then a hard kick to the door just below the lock. The door crumples and slams open. Engineering, 1. Computer nerds, 0. 

A match rasps and flares in the dim lighting of the room. It takes Anna a moment to focus the three points of light into an image that makes sense. Two glowing eyes and the burning end of a cigarette. The man’s aura looks like an underwater snapshot with two rays of sunlight filtering through the green-blue waves. 

He’s also the most advanced android Anna has ever seen. 

_Synth._ Huh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so since google translate doesn’t always provide the best translations or do the grammar right, I’m going to start putting translations for the Russian at the bottom. In the order that it appears:
> 
> *Fuck.
> 
> *Do you speak Russian?
> 
> *A little.
> 
> *I’m fine.
> 
> *Yes.
> 
> *Yes?
> 
> *No.
> 
> *OK, go ahead.
> 
> *Stay behind me.
> 
> Obviously, I’m trying to keep the Russian very simple and easy to understand with context clues. I don’t plan to have any long conversations happen in it, so even if it’s a hassle to scroll down to the translations, you should be able to get by without being confused.
> 
> up next: Deacon and Anna rescue Nick, and Deacon finally introduces himself to Anna as ... well, _Deacon_


	7. Chapter 7

Deacon watches Anna get her first good look at Nick and prays for the best. Pre-war, there were androids and robots, so maybe she won’t be too shocked at his appearance. But if she can’t accept Nick as a person, it’s not going to look good for his chances to recruit her for the Railroad.

Dogmeat is the one to take the first curious step closer. He hesitates for a second and looks up at Anna for reassurance. When she doesn’t call him back, he creeps forward and gives Nick’s jacket a tentative sniff.

“Hey there, pooch,” Nick says. “Are you a good puppy?"

Dogmeat’s ears perk up at the word _good_ , and then he practically melts when Nick uses his metal hand to carefully scratch behind his ears.

“Nick gives the best scritchy-scratches,” Deacon says to lighten the moment. “Which I know because I’m a very good boy. Not that I’m bragging or anything.”

Anna glances over at him, then turns her attention back to Nick. She still doesn’t say anything, and her face remains unreadable. Deacon hopes Nick will at least get bonus point for being nice to her dog. The detective finishes up petting Dogmeat and makes eye contact with Anna.

“I love the irony of the reverse damsel in distress going on here,” he says. “But the question is, why did my heroine risk life and limb for an old private eye?"

“You are detective?” Anna asks.

Nick nods in response, his eyes flickering over to Deacon. The spy doesn’t speak up again. He’ll try to smooth things over if this turns ugly for his friend, but he needs to gauge Anna’s true opinion on synths.

“My son, kidnapped,” she says.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs … ?"

“General,” Anna answers.

“Well, General.” Nick acknowledges her title with a tilt of his head. “You came to the right man, if not the right place. But if you got troubles, I’m glad to help. Now ain’t the time though. Let’s blow this joint, then we’ll talk."

Deacon draws attention back to himself by theatrically slapping his hand to his forehead. “Joint! Let’s blow this _joint_.” He turns to Anna and sighs. “I guess neither of us were right then."

Nick lets out his own weary sigh. “Do I want to ask?"

“Anna said the phrase is _let’s blow this popsicle stand_ but I think it’s lemonade stand,” Deacon says.

Nick snorts. “Kid, you wouldn’t know lemons if life gave them to you."

“Ah, but I do know all about blowing, Mr. Detective,” he replies with a faux lecherous grin.

Anna clears her throat. She jerks her head toward the door leading deeper into the vault when they look at her. From her crossed arms and impatient expression, her meaning is clear.

“Yeah, all right, time to hit the books,” Deacon says.

Nick gives another sigh. Anna shakes her head, then brushes past him. Dogmeat at least spares him a glance, but then he trots after his mistress. After all those games of fetch and wrestle-Deacon-to-the-ground-then-sit-on-top-of-him. Truly, betrayal lurks at every turn.

Deacon cuts his inner monologue short to follow after them, trying to guess the right phrase along the way.

“Time to hit the sack?"

Nick ignores him to give Anna some backstory. “Malone’s crew used to be small time until they found this place. An empty vault, the perfect hideout."

“Hit the hay?"

"Skinny Malone and the rest of his boys are waiting for us, somewhere. The name’s, uh … ironic, but don’t let that fool you. He’s dangerous."

“Hit the motherlode?"

“Rhymes,” Anna says.

It takes Deacon a moment to realize she’s talking to him and not also ignoring his rambling. She certainly didn’t seem to appreciate his humor earlier. Although Glory probably would have taken those foam fingers and whacked him with them, so maybe just walking away from him hadn’t been so bad.

The group draws up short in front of a locked door, probably where Malone’s barricaded himself in. Even if they open the door, they’ll have to step into the room one at a time. Easy to get gunned down that way.

Nick steps up to the lock and examines it. “Shouldn’t be too hard."

“Hit the road?” Deacon guesses to distract her from the way the detective hooks up his metal hand to the terminal.

“Got it in one,” Anna replies dryly.

Nick chuckles as he works on the lock. Perfect. Хорошо, actually. Deacon’s found that humor is one of the easiest bridges to build, and if he can show Anna she shares a sense of dry humor with Nick, the two might get along.

“OK, it’s open,” Nick says. “But I hear footsteps on the other side. Once we step through this door, get ready for anything."

Anna holds her hand up for a halt though. She points at Deacon. “You talk."

“You’re the general,” he says. “Are you sure you don’t want to—"

But she shakes her head. “I punch. You talk."

“All right, boss,” Deacon agrees. “I’ll try to talk our way out of here, and if that doesn’t work, then I’m counting on you to do your thing.”

“While I do that, you will …?” she trails off and gives him a hard look.

“Take Dogmeat and run,” Deacon faithfully repeats. “And since you’ve got ole Nicky here, he can be your support while me and my buddy hunker down somewhere safe, maybe play a game of I Spy."

Anna nods and turns to Nick. “Protect Dog first."

Nick glances down at the pooch, who looks back up at him with bright, happy eyes, tail slowly starting to wag under all the attention.

“Well, I can’t say no to that face,” Nick concedes.

With his agreement, Anna steps forward and opens the door.

*******

“Nicky?"

Big man in a suit. Two men behind him. Woman to his left. Weapons: assault rifle, two submachine guns, baseball bat. Anna steps to the side to let the detective face Malone. The woman and two mobsters behind him give her nervous glances. But eventually everyone’s focus settles on Nick.

"What’re you doin’?” Malone asks. "You come into my house, shoot up my guys. You have any idea how much this is gonna set me back?"

“Actually,” Logan cuts into the conversation, walking in with his hands already on his head. Still swaggering though. Cocky asshole. “We didn’t shoot any of your guys. Punched them, yes. Slammed a few heads together, yes. Caught two of them with their pants down, unfortunately."

“And I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your two-timing dame, Malone,” Nick adds. "You should tell her to write home more often."

Said woman sneers at him. "Aww, poor little Valentine. Ashamed you got beat up by a girl? I’ll just run back home to daddy, shall I?"

Anna squashes down a frustrated groan. Drama. Even worse, with a woman involved. Now people will probably expect her to empathize with this woman over nothing but a shared gender. Anna couldn’t give less of shit about this woman. Getting the detective back to Diamond City to start tracking down leads on Shaun was her only priority.

"Should’ve left it alone, Nicky."

Anna tunes out the rest of Malone’s posturing. This messy drama is none of her concern. Instead she focuses on the auras of the four people in front of her. Malone and the woman’s drift toward each other. She doubts they’re siblings or just really good friends, so this is probably romantic drama. The worst kind.

The two mobsters in the back also have a thin link between their aura’s and Malone’s. Chain of command. They’ll follow his orders. His aura is orange and yellow, puffed up with his own importance. She’ll see when he decides to stop blustering and make a real move.

“Whoa, whoa,” Logan says, drawing her attention again. “We’re not here to shut anything down. You think the mayor wants Gunners taking over your territory? Hell no. All we want is Nick."

"Oh yeah?” the woman demands. "Then what’s this lady doing here? Valentine must have brought her here to rub us all out!"

“Contrary to what you may have heard, we’re not here to rub out anyone,” Logan says.

Anna huffs a small breath of air out through her nose in an almost silent snort. No one else in the room gets the joke. Maybe they will when the two ghouls from the station entrance wake up.

The woman whirls on Malone. "I told you we should’ve killed him, but then you had to get all sentimental! All that stupid crap about the 'old times'."

"Darla, I’m handling this! Skinny Malone’s always got things under control."

Submachine guns. Cannot punch bullets. Don’t want to get Dog killed. Anna repeats that to herself to keep calm. It would be so much easier to kill her way out of this situation. Five years ago, she would have without thinking of the consequences. Being a mother changes everything.

“Hey, listen,” Logan jumps in again. “You do have a good thing going here, and I know you don’t want to fuck that up by … what? Killing your old friend? Holding him hostage indefinitely? He only came down here to make sure your girl is OK, you can’t fault him for that."

“Yeah, well.” Malone’s aura swells up with more male blustering. “I can’t just let shit like this slide either. You gotta show some respect. Pay me back for all the trouble you caused."

Nick lets out a loud scoff. “That a fact, huh, Skinny? Way I remember, you still owe me for two weeks in the hole."

Malone’s aura trembles, on the verge of lashing out. Anna shifts to stand a bit more in front of her dog. He’s done well with staying low and quiet, but she doesn’t want him taking a bullet over this bullshit.

“Don’t even fucking start with me, you smug, overconfident ass!” Malone snaps back.

Anna notes Logan sidling closer to her out of her peripheral. The situation is two seconds away from requiring a few doses of murder. At least Logan is sticking by his promise to watch after Dog. But in this tiny room with two submachine guns already trained on them, she doesn’t like their odds of getting out safely.

“Оружие,” Anna speaks up.

Everyone turns to look at her. Говно. She should have said that in English. But the words swirl around in her mind like a whirlpool. Draining away.

Anna’s palms start sweating again.

“Совершать сделку,” she tells Logan.

The room is silent. Malone’s aura hovers around him, twitching indecisively. Anna wills Logan to understand. She’s already skipped ahead from point A to G in her thinking, but she doesn’t know what words will get him there.

“Thickett,” she says in English.

Darla lets out another sneer. “What the fuck is she—"

But Logan’s eyes blink and clear with understanding. “A deal! We can make you a deal."

He turns back to Malone with a placating smile. Anna has the wild thought that he would have made a good used car salesman. Or one of those actors that work in touristy fake Old Western towns out in the midwest.

“Like you said, to pay you back,” Logan continues.

“Yeah?” Malone asks, his aura not backing down. “I don’t see much you can offer from where I’m standing."

He hefts his assault rifle up a little bit more to make it clear their group is on the wrong side of the firing squad. Anna holds in a scoff. She can be over there in three long strides. Grab his gun, slam the butt into Darla’s head, then pull the trigger and blow his head off.

Maybe his backup would react fast enough to gun her down. Maybe not. Either way, she can kill this pompous asshole anytime she wants.

“C’mon, just hear me out,” Logan asks. “I’ve got something real good—"

Darla cuts him off. “You gonna listen to him try to weasel his way out of this or are you going to be a man and take care of them?”

Logan sighs and speaks up again before Malone can respond. “You hear her talking to you like that? Look at yourself. Darla is playing you for a sap. You’re better than this! You’re better than her."

"You’re …” Malone’s aura wavers one last time, then slumps down. "You’re right. Things have gone nothing but south since she walked into my life."

Darla gasps. Anna represses the urge to scream. Their petty fight is so fucking unimportant. Her son is missing. Her baby. But all she’s doing is standing around, back in a goddamn vault, watching a juvenile high school breakup.

Finally, Darla declares that she’s going home and storms off. Anna doesn’t care if she makes it back to Diamond City safely. She just wants to get out of this vault and back on track finding Shaun.

"They always gotta hit you where it hurts,” Malone says with a sigh. "Now what am I gonna do about you two? This deal better be good."

“Sweeter than her, that’s for sure,” Logan replies. “So. How about you let us go in exchange for some major fire power?"

“You hiding a fusion core up your ass?” Malone asks.

Logan chuckles. “Not this time. I did once, down in—anyway. Another story. What I’m talking about is how General Anna here took out those raiders holed up in Thickett Excavations. Got a lot of leftover loot from that she can kick your way."

“General?” Malone looks over at Anna in disbelief. “Who, the vaultie? General of what?"

“The Commonwealth Minutemen,” Logan answers.

Malone rolls his eyes. “Don’t fuck with me. The Minutemen are dead, and if there’s any that ain’t, they don’t make deals with us."

Anna clears her throat to get his attention back on her. “Russian mafia. Dryomov."

“No shit?” the ghoul mobster to the left pipes up. “Boss, they were the real fucking deal, back in the day. Figures those Russian _figli di putanna_ would still be around."

“Yeah?” Malone eyes her up and down. “Prove it."

Anna slowly bends over to hike up the vault suit on her left leg. Her mail stops below her knee, and she pulls up the blue fabric a bit higher than that to reveal an eight-pointed star with a crucifix below.

“That gives her the rank of Captain,” the ghoul whispers to Malone. “And means she won’t ever go to her knees for a _poliziotto_. The crucifix means she won’t ever betray her family."

Anna straightens back up and taps her chest. “Cathedral. Три куполы."

She’s not going to take off her shirt of mail just so she can unzip her vault suit and flash the whole room. She also doesn’t actually have that tattoo. The Dryomovs never needed a woman to go to prison. Not like there were any other women in the mafia that she could do business with in there.

“What’d she say?” Malone asks.

Logan grimaces and shrugs. “Three of something? Coo-poh-lee?"

“Cupola?” the ghoul says. “Three cupolas? Shit, boss, that means she’s been to prison three times."

“All right.” Malone buys it. “How do I know I’m actually gonna get these guns, huh?"

Logan shrugs. “Well, you know where we all live. Me and Nicky, and the general’s set up her base in Sanctuary. Kind of a trek if she double-crosses you, but it’s not like letting us go is actually going to cost you anything."

“Goddammit, fine,” Malone finally agrees. “But I want those guns up here by the end of the week!” He points at Nick next. "And if I ever see your arrogant synth face snooping around here again, I’m gonna peel off the other half."

Anna starts moving as soon as he finishes speaking. Logan grabs the sleeve of Nick’s trench coat and pulls him along too as the little group walks to the other side of the room. The door in the back leads to stairs that go up to the surface. It’s late at night by the time they emerge.

Nick makes a comment about the night sky. Anna doesn’t say anything. The rest of the walk to Diamond City passes in relative quiet, only broken by occasional soft chatter between Nick and Logan. Anna doesn’t even bother trying to join in. She’s too exhausted. She’d rather have her leg broken again right now than engage in one more conversation.

But that’s what she does when they get back to Nick’s office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian / Italian translations:
> 
> *Guns.  
> *Shit.  
> *Make a deal.  
> **sons of bitches  
> *Three cupolas.
> 
> anyway, this chapter actually got so long I had to break it into two smaller segments, so Deacon doesn’t explain who he really is / about the Railroad until next chapter. whoops!
> 
> also, I tried to stay away from the lines that insult Skinny Malone for his weight and only included the one about his nickname being "ironic." idk if anyone even cares, but it seemed kind of squicky to me that a lot of the interaction with him centered around snarky remarks about him being overweight.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all right, so this is when Deacon really does introduce himself as Deacon. plus some more Nick, as Anna tells him how Shaun was kidnapped ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I'm back! and not dead or abandoning this fic. see the end notes for why the sudden hiatus
> 
> not really any trigger warnings to worry about this chapter

“So how long were your prison stints, doll?” Nick asks once they’re close enough to Diamond City that raiders are unlikely.

“General,” Anna corrects. “None.”

“None prison with left mafia,” Logan mumbles as they walk. He notices her sharp glance over at her and laughs it off. “Sorry, Old World stuff is kind of a hobby of mine. You can find a lot of weird stuff archived on old terminals. So how’s it that you went to prison but didn’t serve any time?”

Anna shrugs. “Didn’t go. Just got tattoo. Needed the cred.”

Prison was a way of life in the gangs actually over in Russia. Over in America though, things worked a bit different. Money came first. Couldn’t make much in prison and bribing guards got expensive. Sure, Ivan still needed people on the inside. But not Anna. Who the fuck was she going to talk to in a woman’s prison? The girls in there were mostly prostitutes and women who had killed their abusive husbands. No benefit to sending Anna in.

“All right.” Nick has another cigarette and he takes a drag as he considers for a moment. “So unless my processor is busted, I take it you’re talking about pre-War. But your skin’s a bit too smooth to peg you as a ghoul.”

“Cryogenics,” Anna says curtly. “Vault One-Eleven. Told us they were decontamination pods.”

Nick stops walking to look her over. “You saying you were frozen down there ‘til now?”

Anna nods. He gives a low whistle. Dog takes the short break as an opportunity to mark the nearby building as his.

“Not to be a backseat-detective or anything Nicky, but this might be an ‘in the office’ conversation,” Logan says.

Anna doesn’t care where the conversation happens. Either way, she’s going to have to recount how she couldn’t stop the Dead Man from taking her son. But standing around out in the open was asking for trouble, even next to the turrets guarding the city’s perimeter. She starts walking again and Dog breaks away from peeing on things to catch up with her. It’s only a moment of silence before Nick speaks up.

“Well, before we start in on that, why don’t you introduce yourself, Deacon?” Nick suggests. “I think you owe her that much for getting us out of there.”

The man apparently called Deacon whips his sunglasses back out and puts them on. The fact that it’s nighttime doesn’t seem to bother him. Now he looks more like the Sunglasses Man who first started following her. Anna prefers that. His eyes are … intense. Projecting his emotions. Looking so sincere.

Nate had eyes like that. He could get just about anything he wanted with one blink of his lashes.

“Hi everyone, my name is Deacon,” he says. When Anna doesn’t reply, he adopts an AA meeting voice and responds to himself. “ _Hi, Deacon_.”

Nick sighs and looks at Anna. Normally when two people share a look like that it means they both feel exasperated or annoyed with the person not included in the look. Anna stares blankly back at him. Deacon’s antics don’t bother her. And she’s not going to share a look with a cop.

“Sorry about the ‘Logan’ thing,” Deacon continues. “Just wanted to see where you were at before I really introduced myself. Don’t take it personally. I lie to everyone.”

Anna couldn’t give less of a shit what his real name is. So far he’s done what she’s told him to and been helpful in her quest to find Shaun. Dog sneezes, then returns to panting happily as he trots beside her. She reluctantly includes “being nice to her dog” to the list. If she isn’t careful, she might end up liking him.

“I’d tell you more about why I’ve been your apparently-not-so-secret admirer these last few days, but that’s definitely an ‘in the office’ conversation,” he says.

Nick looks over at him with a smirk. “She made you, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” Deacon cheerfully replies. “She made me like a cherry pie. Knew I was following her the whole time, even caught me on tape.”

Nick’s face contorts into an expression Anna thinks might have been raised eyebrows, if he still had them. She’s not sure. It’s difficult enough for her to recognize expressions on human faces and trying to read Nick’s is making her head hurt.

“Well there has to be a first time for everything,” Nick murmurs.

Deacon nods. “Yes, that is in fact, the first time I have ever fucked up in my entire life. Stupid not to look for security cameras in the Vault, but I didn’t think they’d be broadcasting anywhere. Turns out, she had them connected to her PipBoy while she waited to see if the perp would come back to the scene of the crime. Is that what feeling stupid is like? I wouldn’t know.”

Nick snorts and smoke drifts out his nose. And the side of his face where the skin is ripped away. “Surprised she didn’t peg you as the perp, dicking around down there.”

“Aw Nicky, you know you’re the only dick here,” Deacon says with a wink. "And was that a pegging pun?"

Anna tunes out their banter as they reach the closed gate to Diamond City. She hits the comm button on the wall and static crackles out.

“Open.”

“Uh, who’s this?” Danny asks through the comm. “’Cause it’s past curfew, and the mayor says—“

Anna presses the button again, letting the metal claws of her other hand clink down one at a time against the wall right next to the speakers. “I’ve had a long day, Sullivan.”

Her low voice and the implicit threat in them have the gates immediately shuddering open. Dog wiggles under them first, and by the time they’ve raised enough for Anna to duck through, he’s already pushing between Danny’s legs to sniff him for treats.

“Mr. Valentine!” Danny stands up when he spots the synth, dislodging Dog. “Glad you’re back, sir. Myrna said you got an upgrade and were going to come back as a Gen Three. She’s been accusing random people of being you all week.”

“She been bothering Ellie again?” Nick asks, his aura flaring up for a moment.

“No sir.”

His aura settles down and he shrugs. “Then I guess she’ll see I’m just as busted up as ever. Might even have a new scratch or two.”

“Wait, _or_ ,” Deacon says with a wide grin. “We _all_ start talking like a cheap noir movie. If we start gammin’ with some killer diller, that’ll really—“

“Kid,” Nick interrupts. “Just stop.”

Deacon holds up his hands. “Whoa, don’t snap your cap and flip your wig on me.”

“The only wig here—“

Anna clears her throat, cutting off Nick’s reply. “Office.”

Nick stops, then nods at her. “Right. Night, Danny.”

“Goodnight sir,” the guard replies.

Anna whistles at Dog as they leave, and he stops sniffing around at Danny’s desk to follow after them. It’s late enough that no one else is out on the street inside the city. Anna doesn’t make eye contact with the two robots still up at the market as they pass. Or … synths? Is that the name for all robots now? Robotic people? And what the hell is a Gen 3?

But figuring out all that would require asking someone. Talking. Listening. Anna barely has enough emotional energy for the conversation ahead about Shaun. Actually, she might not have enough to get through that.

Nick disappears up a set of stairs as soon as they enter his office. The woman, secretary. Ellie. Anna takes a seat in the chair in front of his desk. Deacon leans against a nearby filing cabinet. There’s a hushed conversation from upstairs. Deacon busies himself with petting Dog instead of talking to her. Thank God. Anna thinks she might have started screaming if she had to try to make small talk at the moment.

Dead Man. Muddy red-brown aura. Shot Nate and took Shaun. The scene starts replying in Anna’s head with perfect clarity. She just wants to give the man’s description to Nick and go to bed. The detective comes back down the stairs, and the images press harder at her mind.

“Would you like some water or—"

“White male,” Anna blurts out in the middle of his offer. “Mid-forties, about six foot, maybe one eighty."

Nick’s golden eyes consider her for a moment, then he takes a seat at his desk. She tenses her leg muscles in an effort not to tap her foot as he flips open a notebook.

“Anything else you can remember?” he asks.

“Balding, dark brown hair on the sides,” she says. “Beard and mustache, not thick. Brown eyes. Scar across left eye from forehead to jaw."

Nick pauses and looks up from his notebook. Anna notices Deacon’s aura jump with interest out of the corner of her eye. The words keep spilling out.

“Deep voice, scratchy, recognizable. Wearing body armor. Accompanied by two scientists in hazmat suits."

“Ma’am,” Nick interrupts gently. “I think I know your guy."

He pulls out a drawer and shuffles through it. Anna grips the arms of the chair, then forces herself to relax. Nick sets a file on his desk and takes out a sketch of the Dead Man.

Anna nods. “Him. Name?"

“Conrad Kellog,” Deacon answers. “Top heavy for the Institute. Does their dirty work on the surface when they need a human to get the job done."

Anna had suspected before that the Dead Man—“Kellog”—worked for someone bigger than him, but now she had a name. The Institute.

“And who do you work for?” she asks him.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and grins at her. “We’re a pretty underground organization, you probably haven’t heard of us. I, for one, liked us before we were cool."

Nick rolls his eyes. “You’re not cool now. And that explanation is overdue."

Deacon tips his head in acknowledgement. “The Railroad. We help synths who escape the Institute, that makes them by the way. Free slave labor really cuts down on their costs, but the synths just keep developing ‘personalities’ and ‘sentience’."

He makes air quotes around the words with a wry smirk. Anna tilts her head to the side as she thinks about it. Convenient that he just so happens to work for the enemy of the group that took her son. Especially since all she has is his word and Nick’s that this “Institute” is the one who sent Kellog.

But it’s all she has to go off of.

“You’re recruiting,” she states flatly.

“Well, ah, yes,” he says. “I would actually really love it if you would join our super secret club. Especially since the Institute seems to have some sort of interest in you, so frankly, we want you just so they can’t have you. But that deathclaw fist fighting thing you have going is pretty fucking neat-o too."

“You lying about fist fighting deathclaws again?” Nick asks his friend. “I thought you cut that bullshit out in March."

Deacon gasps and presses his hand to his chest. “I’m telling the God’s honest truth, Mr. Valentine! Swear on my wig, you should have seen her. She ran straight at this deathclaw, BAM! Uppercut! Then got up on a truck, jab-jab-POW! Boxed with it one-on-one. And for the grand finale, a flying tackle to bring it down and put it in a headlock."

Dog barks excitedly as Logan shadow boxes to illustrate his story. The two wind up wrestling on the ground, Deacon pretending to pin the dog like Anna did to the deathclaw. Nick’s turquoise aura drifts closer to the two in something Anna thinks is fondness, even as he exhales a cloud of smoke and rolls his glowing eyes.

“The Institute,” Anna says, drawing their attention again. “Where?"

Deacon sucks in air through his teeth. “That’s the million dollar question. The Institute invented and is still churning out synths, but we can’t find where they actually are."

Anna immediately look to Nick. He should know. But he only taps his temple with his pencil.

“Security protocols,” he says. “Wipes out all that important info as soon as we leave. Or get tossed out, in my case."

“Human agents?"

Unless humans could have the “security protocols” installed in their heads too. Anna supposed anything was possible now.

“None but Kellog,” Deacon answers her question. “They primarily use coursers. Synths with enhanced senses, strength, and some kind of stealth tech that makes tracking their movements impossible."

So Kellog is her only lead. Find him, find the Institute, find Shaun. But she doesn’t have the intel or the resources to track her down on her own. She’ll need allies. The only other group she’s heard about is the Brotherhood. Her earlier sentiment still stands however.

She has no interest in working with the remnants of the organization that pumped her husband full of drugs for experiments, shipped him overseas to put him through the meat grinder of war, then abandoned him to trap houses when he finally made it back home.

Nate might have been a manipulative, cheating asshole, but the military held his hand every step of the way to becoming that way.

“Convince me to join,” she tells Deacon.

“Our super secret clubhouse?” He straightens up and claps his hands together. “Well, we’ve been fighting the good fight for almost a century now. The only organization the Institute hasn’t put down or wiped completely off the map.”

He pauses to give a bitter chuckle. “Not for lack of trying, but we’re like molerats! We just pop back up. Also, sometimes I’m naked. Gotta change disguises fast, not much privacy in the Wastes, so just sort of avert your good Christian eyes."

“Meanwhile,” Nick cuts into the conversation with a more serious tone. “The Brotherhood got here less than a year ago, and all they’ve done is piss off everyone and their dog. Their leader, Maxson? He couldn’t find his own ass even if he ever pulled his head out of it."

Anna nods. They did in fact piss her off and insult her dog.

“I can’t swing you much by way of manpower,” Deacon continues. “But I’ve got contacts all across the Commonwealth. Intel, connections, trade, I can set that up for you. Soldiers and firepower? Not so much."

Reviving the Minutemen could take care of that. Preston already had a few settlements in mind that he thought would join and send settlers. She’d promised the guns from Thickett Excavations to Skinny Malone, but she’d keep the armor and sell off the chems. Not like there was any shortage of raider dens around that she could hit for more guns and ammo.

Intel, connections, and trade were exactly what she needed and couldn’t provide herself. Again, convenient that this guy just so happened to show up and offer them to her.

“I want to see your base,” Anna finally says.

“Sure! I can take you to my leader too,” Deacon replies with a grin. “Show you around the clubhouse, do a meet and greet with a few of the other agents, it’ll be rad. In a good way."

“As full of shit as he is,” Nick speaks up. “He’s been after Kellog for longer than I have. I’ll put word out to my own contacts, see if anyone in the city has heard anything, but he might be your better bet."

“I absolutely am full of shit,” Deacon agrees, then his tone turns more serious. “But I’ll help you hunt that bastard down and get your son back any way I can."

Anna just gives a curt nod in response. She’s heard promises from men before and she’s tired. Dog must sense her mood because he comes over and lays his head in her lap. She absently pets her head while she waits for either man to volunteer more information. Nick puts the sketch back into his file and hands it to her.

"The Institute's known for kidnapping, but I've never had a case of a taken child," he says. "The difference in M.O. could mean they're holding your son alive. How old is he?"

"Nine months, seventeen days," Anna answers.

Nick’s aura jumps in shock at the information.

"A baby?" he asks, half to himself. "If you're up to it, could you run me through exactly what happened?"

Anna decides to start from the very beginning. Run through the whole story once so she doesn't have to repeat it in parts later.

"News," she says. "Live report of bombs. Evacuated to the vault. They said to go in containment pods."

She stops and takes a deep breath. Stupid. So fucking stupid to believe that. But there was another part that needed to be explained.

"Nate had Shaun. I told him to. Needed my hands free."

After that, she has to stop and just breathe. Taking out a whole den of raiders, killing two death claws--didn't faze her. But sitting in a chair and talking while two people stare at her has Anna breaking out in a cold sweat.

"Why did you need your hands free?" Nick prompts gently.

"To shove." Anna stares back at them, nonchalant as she explains. "Lot of people wanted into the vault. Gates got crowded."

Anna waits for one of them to comment. To judge her for putting her family before the lives of strangers. Nick's aura wavers like he might say something, but he only asks another question instead.

"So Nate had your son with him when he went into the cryo pod?"

"Yes," Anna confirms. "Cold. Unconscious. Woke up to Kellog."

Nick flips his notebook back open. "Did he say anything?"

"Demanded Nate give him Shaun."

Anna stops again, gripping the arms of the chair so hard she hears a faint crack. Splinters drop to the floor when she unclenches her fists. Nate had whined. Fucking _whined_ , like a preteen having his game controller taking away from him. Nate could have done anything. Fought back. Struggled at least a little. Hell, he could have just argued in a way that stalled Kellog long enough for her to pry open the pod door.

But instead Nate pissed Kellog off and got shot in his stupid pretty boy face.

"Shot Nate in the head," Anna says without emotion. "A scientist took Shaun. Kellog yelled at the other to put me under again."

"Back into the cryostasis?" Nick clarifies.

She nods. "I almost had the door open. Heard him call me their 'backup' before I blacked out."

"And the next time you woke up was ... " Nick looks at her over the notebook. "Recently?"

This time she shakes her head no. "Pod malfunctioned. Went offline. Briefly. Five times. Failed completely on sixth."

Dog has been dozing with his head still on her lap during the boring human talk. Anna carefully pets his head. She has to stay calm to pet him. Breaking chairs doesn't concern her. Hurting her dog is unacceptable. The room is silent as Nick finishes writing. Anna peeks at Deacon's aura out of her peripheral vision. He's a smudge of black and blue, DC guard uniform and swirling color. This might be the longest he's ever been silent since first introducing himself.

Nick finally flips his notebook shut again. "Thank you, Mrs. ...?"

"General," she says for what seems like the hundredth time.

"General ... Anna," Nick repeats slowly. "And my condolences for your husband. Anything I find out, I'll get to you immediately."

Anna makes a soft hum of acknowledgment. She's too tired to nod. She wants to be alone. Go to bed. Not speak.

"Want me to walk you back to the Inn?" Deacon asks, speaking up for the first time since she started recounting her story. "I'll let the brothers know you need a room for another night."

The idea of needing to be escorted across town makes Anna want to grind her teeth. But whoever these brothers are, she doesn't want to talk to them. Barter for a room. Fuck. No. She grunts in acceptance of Deacon's offer and stands. Nick stands too, but she turns away and walks to the door before he can catch her in a series of "goodbye" and "goodnight." Fuck that too.

She waits outside the office, leaning against the metal wall until Deacon comes out. Dog gives a short bark. His aura drifts closer to Deacon's. At least someone is happy to be walked to the Inn.

Deacon keeps up a steady chatter to the dog on the way over. Telling him he's a good boy and promising to get some brahmin jerky for him from the butcher. Speculating that Dog's puppy eyes might get lower prices from Myrna too. Anna only half-listens, letting the words fade into soft background noise. He never addresses her directly, and she doesn't speak.

It's almost soothing. Having the noise and company of a conversation without being expected to formulate a response. But she mentally shakes off that thought when they reach the Inn. She's tired and getting complacent. Finding Shaun should be her only focus.

Something about the two men behind the counter looks familiar, but Anna brushes past them without a second glance. If Deacon wants her to join his cause then he can prove his usefulness by handling the payment. She chooses an empty room and lays down on the bed without even taking her shoes off. Dog jumps up onto the bed next to her and curls up close. She buries her face in his fur.

Having a dog is the only concession to friendship she needs to make.

*******

Nick fixes Deacon with A Look as soon as he gets back to the office. The spy rethinks his decision to come back. He could have just stayed at the Dugout, shooting the shit with Vadim. But this conversation is going to happen one way or another, so it might as well happen now.

“Did you know she was down there?"

“Damn, Nick,” Deacon grumbles as he sprawls into the chair Anna had been sitting in. “There isn’t even a bush to beat around with you tonight, is there?"

Nick leans back against his desk and crosses his arms. Him standing with Deacon sitting makes it feel like he’s been called into the principal’s office. Which is ridiculous, because he’s never went to school a day in his very long life.

“I thought it was tech,” Deacon answers with a sigh. “Or maybe some important files. A weapon. If there were still people alive down there, I thought they’d be like all the other vaults. Weird, slightly inbred descendants of the pre-war folk."

Nick lets his disapproving silence speak for him. Deacon knows what he’s doing. Staying silent to get the perp to fill in the quiet with more information. But he doesn’t really feel like sitting here all night, so he plays along.

“It’s not like I could get in there anyway,” he says. “I tried. I brought PAM up to look at the security lock to see if she could hack it with a brute force attack."

“And?” Nick finally speaks.

Deacon grimaces. “The combination used the full alphabet, lower case and capitals, plus digits and punctuation. That’s a nine-two range of characters within a twelve character password. Sixty-three thousand years to crack, assuming it’s using a latin alphabet.”

Nick drops his arms with a sigh of his own. “So only opened with the passcode or from the inside."

“Got it in one,” Deacon says, his voice too casual for the gravity of the conversation. “You know, everyone else in the pods suffocated when their life-support failed."

Nick’s eyes glow a little brighter as he focuses back on Deacon. “But she got her door open."

Deacon smirks grimly. “She didn’t just ‘get it open.’ All of the pod’s mechanisms shut down when they lost power one by one. Including the doors. So all those frosty little snowmen in there thawed out, woke up, and then … trapped."

Nick presses his lips into a thin line. Deacon keeps going, his tone still light like he’s explaining how Nuka Quantums doing the glowing thing.

“Some of the pods had blood smeared across the viewing port where they smashed their heads into it and ripped off their nails clawing at the edges."

“Deacon—"

“But _Anna Howard_.” Deacon stresses her name, lifting up his pointer finger like he’s giving a lecture. “She pried her way out. Actually bent the steel door kicking and pushing. Her pod malfunctioning probably gave her enough time to do it, fighting like that for just a few seconds each time she woke up, then being put under again as the cryo blinked back on. Five times of that, desperate to—"

“Deacon!"

He forces himself to stop. The fact that Anna fought her way out is _important_. How many people had the psychology to do that? To wake up and pound at the metal door of their coffin, knowing they were about to be frozen again in just another second. To do that every single time. To fight like that for their family.

Yeah, her physical strength and combat experience are great. Building up the Minutemen is risky in Deacon’s opinion, but linking the little settlements across the Commonwealth through trade will be good for everyone, and especially good for spreading around some new tourists.

But that’s not why he wants her. Anna Howard is the type of person who will do anything for her family, will even take on a deathclaw just to save her dog. The Railroad needs more people like that.

“So she’s a fighter and determined to protect her family,” Nick says. “And now you’ve pointed her at the Institute."

Deacon shrugs. “Not inaccurately."

“You’re using her,” Nick accuses him.

Deacon slumps back in the chair, looking even more nonchalant, but his voice hardens. “Goddamn right I am."

Nick literally hums in disapproval as his processors kick up a notch.

“But I’m also giving her the resources to find her son,” he continues.

Nick scoffs. “And if he is still alive inside the Institute? You gonna perform some kind of rescue? ‘Cause last I heard, your fearless leader doesn’t give a molerat’s ass about the humans caught up in this mess."

“She will if she wants General Anna on board,” Deacon says. “And I didn’t say anything about her anyway. If you’ll recall, I said I would help find the boy."

“Personally?” Nick asks with a fair measure of doubt.

“Yep-puh.” Deacon pops the _p_ with his usual irreverence.

Nick’s eyes glow a littler brighter again, his version of narrowing them. “Didn’t think you got involved in the messy parts."

“Ehhh.” Deacon shakes his hand back and forth in a so-so gesture.

“That’s not an answer."

“Ehhh."

“You can’t reply to everything like that."

“Ehhh."

Nick huffs and pinches the bridge of his nose in a leftover human gesture. It’s not like he can get headaches now. Deacon keeps his trademark shit-eating grin plastered to his face.

“Fine,” Nick says, his voice close to a grumble. “Two of you are adults anyway."

“Does that mean I can skip curfew tonight, Dad?” Deacon asks in a high, teenage voice.

“Fuck off,” Nick growls.

Deacon stands up with a laugh. “Nice seeing you too, Valley Girl."

Nick’s groan follows him out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so basically, I went on a two-week study tour in Rome and forgot to post an AN explaining I wouldn't be able to update while I was there or the week before while I was packing / moving out of my apartment. whoopsies!
> 
> but I'm back now! so this fic will regularly update again every Saturday, as per usual. again, sorry about the disappearing act, but thank you so much for the nice comments I got while I was gone <3
> 
> next time: Deacon takes Anna to the Switchboard to meet the whole dysfunctional Railroad family~


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon takes Anna back to HQ to meet the family. Desdemona is totally the mom in this metaphor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no trigger warning needed again this time, although I will mention that Carrington uses the word "pr*stitute" (which idk, might not be cool for some people?; Anna /always/ uses the term "sex worker" instead) and Deacon deals with some intrusive thoughts in the middle of the chapter.

"Honey, I'm ho-oome," Deacon calls as he leads Anna down the stairs from the donut shop to the actual Switchboard.

He's been dropping little references into his speech since yesterday and even though he can see the recognition in her eyes when he says something only an Old Worlder would know, she hasn't asked him about it yet. She hasn't told him to cut it out yet either. She might actually break the record for going the longest without telling him to shut up, knocking out Tinker Tom's current record of three and a half days.

"Please don't start singing, for the love of God--” Sly Nick draws up short when he sees Anna. "Who the hell is this?"

"This is Anna," Deacon says. "She fist fights deathclaws."

Sy Nick’s eyes narrow. "That's bullshit." He takes a second look at Anna and his confidence falters. "… c’mon, Dee, tell me that’s bullshit."

Dogmeat whines at Anna's side, looking eagerly between his mistress and the new person who might have treats. Anna gives him a nod, and he immediately bounds forward to nearly bowl the other man over in his eagerness to sniff him.

"Whoa, hey, down boy," he says, then gives Deacon a look. "You know how Carrington feels about pets."

Deacon scoffs. "Carrington doesn't have feelings."

"And unannounced new tourists, which you didn't notify anyone about,” Sly Nick continues, although he doesn't stop petting the dog.

"I went through a tunnel and lost cell phone service," Deacon replies.

"For two months?"

He shrugs. "It was a long tunnel. Had a lot of branches, went pretty deep. At one point, I had to drink my own piss just to stay alive."

Glory comes up the stairs with her usual swagger and leans against the wall. "Isn't there water in most tunnels? Underground springs?"

"Oh yeah," he says. "Huge cavern lake down there. Very still."

Sly Nick pauses in petting Dogmeat to stare at him. "Then why did you have to drink your own piss?"

Deacon tilts his head to the angle he knows will make light reflect off his sunglasses. "That's classified."

Sly Nick groans, while Glory rolls her eyes with a huff. Anna still hasn't said a single word. Glory jerks her chin in the Vaultie's direction.

"Who's this?" she asks.

"How about," Deacon suggests. "We go down to the main room so I don't have to introduce her thirty-seven hundred times to everyone individually."

Glory doesn't reply. His finely tuned "I'm in the presence of a woman who can stomp me into the fucking ground" sense starts tingling as the synth continues to stare at Anna. To his surprise, Anna blinks freely, apparently not caring about asserting her dominance through a staring contest.

Or so confident in her dominance that the staring contest is unnecessary.

Glory's eyes narrow, and she makes a subtle shift back onto the balls of her feet as if that thought just occurred to her too. Still leaning against the wall in the appearance of nonchalance, but ready to move into a fighting stance.

"Does that sound like a good idea, boy?" Deacon asks.

Dogmeat obligingly barks for him, moving the focus of the group to the happy canine companion and interrupting the brewing shitstorm of two alpha females locked in close quarters.

"Then the majority has it," Deacon says. "Right this way, please."

"That wasn't the majority," Glory grumbles as they walk past.

"Dogs get two votes because of how pure they are," he says.

Sly Nick follows after them. "That still only puts it two for him and one for you, and there are three of us."

"His wig," Anna says, startling all of them by suddenly speaking.

"That's right," Deacon immediately fills in what could have been an awkward silence. "My wig is fully sentient and also a Pisces, and as such, has its own vote."

Sly Nick and Glory give Anna curious looks after that, but she stares straight ahead as they pass through the upper floor offices. Drummer Boy gives him a nod and Songbird is busy at one of the terminals, but there's no sight of Des or Carrington. The latter is surprising. Carrington loves to hang out in the upper offices, looking out over the main switchboard floor down below, brooding like a bad anime villain.

"So where is our Care Bear today, anyway?" Deacon asks.

"DEACON!"

A quick glance down shows agents scurrying to get out of Carrington's way as he storms out into the middle of the floor. Deacon leans against the rail and shoots him his best shit-eating grin.

"Polo!" he calls down.

"Get. Down. Here," Carrington demands.

Deacon throws him a salute and saunters down the stairs. He hears Anna murmur a short command in Russian behind him, and he hopes she's telling her dog to stay. The doc is obviously in a shit mood, and Deacon would rather he get yelled at than the innocent puppy.

"You shot another agent in the--"

The loud clearing of someone's throat cuts off Carrington's explanation. To Deacon's surprise, Anna comes down the stairs to stand beside him.

"And who is this?" Carrington asks in that prissy fucking voice of his.

"This is General Anna Howard of the Commonwealth Minutemen," Deacon says grandly, projecting his voice to carry. "And we really need to speak to Desdemona, so if you could--"

"You shot a fellow agent," Carrington repeats. "In the--"

Anna clears her throat again and gives him a little head shake _no_.

"What? What is she ..." The doctor stops and harrumphs back at her. "You may have been manipulated into believing Deacon is your 'friend'" He actually makes air quotes around the word. "But he deliberately shot one of our own agents--"

"In upper thigh," Anna says, too quickly. "Was _not_ the ass. Deacon is liar."

Several whispers about how Deacon shot Tommy in the ass immediately ripple through the agents listening to the confrontation. Deacon is so impressed he has to work not to let his jaw drop. The timing. The acting. The sheer _pettiness_. In three sentences, she's made certain everyone in the Railroad will start gossiping about how Tommy Whispers got shot in the ass.

Then the man of the hour himself pushes to the front of the small crowd, limping badly.

"Is that what he said?" Tommy demands. "It was the leg! He shot me in the _leg_!"

No one believes him. That's exactly what a man who got shot in the ass would say.

"The location of the injury doesn't matter," Carrington says. "The fact remains that you shot an agent in the field, used him as bait for a deathclaw, then left him for dead."

"Whoa, hold up," Deacon says, raising his hands. "That was a completely accidental misfire, and I would like to remind everyone that I am _not_ a combat agent. So yes, I got a little scared with a goddamn deathclaw breathing down my neck, and yes, I shot off too soon--which is, swear to God, the first time that has ever happened in any context."

"That's not how it happened at all," Tommy complains. "He totally shot me on purpose."

"In the leg," Anna adds, her tone stilted and unconvincing.

She gives Tommy a little nod that isn't subtle at all, like she's backing his story up instead of making it completely unbelievable. Fucking brilliant. Deacon focuses on the mole on Carrington's chin so he doesn't start grinning. Damn, they make one hell of a team. Him, with his bullshit and her, so blunt and untactful that everything she says _must_ be honest. Except it isn't, and she's shamelessly playing other people's perception of her thick accent and social awkwardness to her advantage. The two of them could--

Stop. No. He doesn't work with a partner. Traveling with her was a one time thing to recruit her and get her here. Mission accomplished, end of story.

Carrington crossing his arms snaps Deacon's focus back to the present. "And what about the rest? Using an injured agent as bait?"

"Again, not a combat agent," Deacon says. "So yeah, I retreated to safety with Anna's dog--"

"What dog?!"

"--while she circled around to fight the deathclaw," Deacon continues, ignoring Carrington's outburst. "Which she did, to save a man she hadn't even known for a full day."

"What?" Tommy squawks.

Deacon holds his hands out in a _what do you want from me_ gesture. "Hey, I'm just saying, she could have walked away."

"I was mauled!" Tommy shouts.

The crowd turns to look back at Deacon for his reply like they're watching a tennis match. Even Carrington has stopped shouting to see how this works out.

"All right yeah, the deathclaw got to you first," Deacon says. "It shook you around a little bit, but then Anna literally charged at it to get it to drop you. On your head maybe, but that's nothing worse than what your mom already did when you were--"

"Oh fuck you!"

Tommy lunges for Deacon, but he already knew that last comment would probably be the tipping point. He prepares to dodge to the side, out of the other man's reach, but then Anna is in front of him. There's a smacking sound as she catches Tommy and uses his own momentum to slam him down face first onto the nearest desk. One of her hands twists his arm up behind his back while her other hand keeps him pinned down by the neck.

"Ow, fuck, let go," Tommy yells.

Anna releases him and takes a step back. "Did I hurt your ass?"

A couple of the other agents snicker, and Tommy scrambles back to his feet, staring at her with dawning comprehension.

"You're doing it on purpose," he says. "You're with him! You both--you--"

"I do what?" Anna asks, her accent deliberately thicker.

"Conspiracy!"

"Easy there, buddy," Deacon says, peeking around Anna's mass that still separates him from Tommy. "You're starting to sound like the other Tom now."

Tommy opens his mouth to keep yelling, but he cuts off as soon as Desdemona enters the room. All the other agents stand up a bit straighter too, and one hard glare from her sends them all scurrying to look busy. She turns her gaze on Anna next, who meets it with her typical blank expression.

"We can talk in my office," Desdemona says, then gives Deacon a stern look. "You too."

"I'm an open book," he replies. "One of those Latin ones that doesn't use spaces or punctuation in between the words, so it's really hard to--"

"Now."

*******

The woman with the green aura is clearly in charge. Anna watches her carefully as they go back up to the second floor. The two other agents she'd left Dog with quickly leave at the nod of the boss woman's head. But not before Anna sees the way the red aura of the woman who had tried to start a staring contest with her drifted closer to the green aura. The two were connected somehow, deeper than boss and subordinate.

"The dog is _here_?" The man Anna assumes is Carrington exclaims.

Dog runs over to him when he hears his name, but the man flinches back.

"No." He shoves Dog's snout down. "Dammit, Deacon, you know I'm allergic!"

Dog slinks back over to Anna with a whine. She barely suppresses a growl herself. Not wanting pets close because of allergies was one thing, but he had come close to hitting her dog.

"Sorry, man. The dog was nonnegotiable," Deacon says.

Anna crouches down and lets Dog press up close to her. She pets him gently, mindful of the clawed gauntlets she still has on.

"Weapons out and on the table for now," the boss woman says. "We may seem paranoid, but we don't often accept new people into our organization without any vetting process or notification whatsoever."

Deacon ignores the passive-aggressive dig at the end of her sentence as Anna stands back up. Dog goes over to him to get sympathy petting next. Anna takes off her gauntlets as Deacon baby-talks to her dog about what a good boy he is. Carrington stays in the corner, sniffling and glaring at everyone.

"My name is Desdemona," the leader continues. "You've met Carrington and Deacon. He has told you that's his ... most common handle, right?"

Anna notes the way Desdemona hesitates and doesn't say name. She grunts out an affirmation and sets her gauntlets down on the table. After a moment of thought, she takes out her knife and lays that down too.

There's a beat of silence while Desdemona and Carrington wait for more.

"Where's the weapon you took down the deathclaw with?" he asks.

Anna mutely gestures to the gauntlets.

"You killed a deathclaw ... with your hands?" Desdemona asks slowly.

Anna nods.

The leader gives her a moment to elaborate on her own, then asks, "How?"

"Pinned it," Anna says. "Deacon shot it. Pulled out brain."

"Yeah, lemme tell you," he pipes up from where he's kneeling on the floor. " _My_ hands got the worse end of the deal."

"How did you 'pin it'?" Carrington asks, making air quotes again.

"Down," Anna says.

He blinks at her in confusion. No one gets what she means until suddenly Deacon snorts out a laugh.

"She pinned it down," he explains. "That's how she pinned it. Down."

Carrington takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. His aura has been flared up ever since he first shouted Deacon's name and it hasn't gone down since. Anna doesn't like the color of it. A yellow-orange, like the color of bloody piss.

"Just once, I would like it if," he starts. "Just for _once_ , you would give a report that's actually accurate and not hyperbolic fabrication. Now. How did. The deathclaw. Die?"

And that's all Anna needs to see to know she hates this man. Belittles his agents. Nearly hit her dog. Asks questions in that condescending slow-talk voice men use to make you feel as stupid as possible.

Fuck this guy.

But Deacon only sighs and stands back up. "All right. What really happened was Anna baited the 'claw into rushing her and crashing into a dilapidated building. It fell through a moldy floor and got impaled on something metal down below. She pinned its head down, and I shot it through the eyeball until it stopped thrashing. But I seriously did have to stick my hand all up in its eye socket to get my gun pointed right to shoot its brain."

Anna is a little impressed at the lie, despite her attempts not to get attached. Defending him from Carrington earlier was just to get even with Tommy. But the way Deacon stuck to the established story while still twisting it enough to meet their expectations of what the "truth" must be was admittedly a nice accomplishment.

Plus, these people don't need to know what she's really capable of anyway.

“And why did you need to leave Tommy Whispers behind?” Desdemona asks.

“Nick Valentine was in trouble with Skinny Malone and we needed to get him out fast,” Deacon says.

Carrington crosses his arms again. “I’d like to know a bit more about this woman you’ve brought to our headquarters with no higher approval."

They knew enough about her to decide she needed Tommy Whispers assigned to her. He’s apparently reported back everything that happened to them. They know all they need to as far as Anna is concerned. She stays silent and stares blankly back at him.

“General Anna is the sole survivor of Vault One-Eleven,” Deacon explains for her. “The Institute sent Kellog in with a passcode to override the security locks on the doors. He shot her husband took her nine month old baby. All the other Vaulties died when their life support failed."

Desdemona frowns. “Life support?"

Deacon glances over at Anna, almost like he wants his permission to continue. She’s happy to let him do the talking. Going through the story once for Nick was the only time she had in her. She can’t do it again.

“The big experiment of Vault One-Eleven was cryogenics,” he continues. “One team of scientists, small security squad, and a group of test subjects drawn from the Pre-War neighborhood of Sanctuary Hills. The scientists told them they needed to get in decontamination pods after the bombs dropped, but it was—"

“Wait,” Carrington interrupts. “The bombs? _The_ bombs?"

Desdemona fixes Anna with a hard stare, while the doctor looks skeptical. She doesn’t bother trying to convince them. They’ll believe what they want. Her age isn’t important. Whether she’s Pre-War or a regular Vault Dweller, all that matters is Kellog came in and took her son.

“She gets all my jokes,” Deacon says, as if that’s proof enough.

“What evidence do you have?” Desdemona asks him.

He gives a tiny little sigh like he expected that and wordlessly takes a flash drive out his pocket. “Copied straight from the terminals inside, including the Overseer’s."

Anna decides she dislikes the woman too. Deacon is her agent. She should either trust him or deal with him. He shouldn’t have to prove that his reports are true. Especially when the two have already demonstrated that they don’t listen to the truth even when he tells it.

Desdemona takes the drive and looks back to Anna. “How are you adjusting to the new world?"

Anna grunts. “Хорошо."

Carrington and Desdemona’s auras both stay still, hovering without a spark of recognition at the word. Russian may not have survived as a language in America. Not a common one, at least. Anna really couldn’t give less of a shit whether they understand her.

“She says she’s doing fine, and thanks you for asking,” Deacon translates. “Russian is a very succinct language."

“How much English does she speak?” Carrington asks.

“Well, she’s right here, so you could ask her,” Deacon replies. “I’ve found just asking the word English is a pretty easy way to get the message across."

Carrington’s bloody piss aura roils around him in irritation.

“Do you speak much English?” Desdemona asks her directly.

“Да."

The green swirling around her starts to billow out a bit more. Anna keeps her face impassive. She hopes her body language gives off the correct message of _get fucked_. She’s not very good at reading or communicating with body language.

“Do you have any idea why the Institute might want your child?” the leader continues.

“Clean genetics,” Anna finally deigns to answer in English.

This time Desdemona is the one who stays silent while she considers the other woman. Anna doesn’t mind waiting her out. Standing still and silent for hours on end is no problem.

“Anna is also in the process of restoring the Minutemen as their General,” Deacon fills in the silence. “An alliance with her would be a good way to offer more assistance to human settlements and relocate some of our packages."

Carrington’s aura flickers contemptuously. “And what settlements have even joined the Minutemen?"

“General Anna currently has Sanctuary set up as her base,” Deacon says. “It has running water, working generators, and good farming land. She also cleared out the raiders holed up in Thickett Excavations, and is in contact with Abernathy Farms, Tempines Bluff, and Sunshine Tidings."

Her being “in contact” with those settlements is completely untrue, but those are the three Preston told her to look into. Deacon must have watched her pretty closely when she was setting up Sanctuary. And she has to admit he put a damn good spin on her accomplishments so far.

“What did you do …” Desdemona pauses to consider her. “Before you were in the Vault?"

“Are you seriously believing them?” Carrington gripes from his corner. “At least watch the holotape first. And it had better not be another video of you doing that stupid dance, Deacon."

Desdemona shoots her co-leader an exasperate look to get him to be quiet and let Anna speak.

“Sex work, fixer, housewife, welder,” Anna says.

Carrington opens his mouth, and she hopes he makes a fucking comment about the sex work. But he shuts it again. Damn. Anna wouldn’t mind an excuse to throat punch him.

Of course, that resume does leave out a lot. Kotku did the actual sex part of the sex work. Anna just made sure the johns didn’t slap her around any more than they paid for. Sometimes they were into being watched or shoved around by a bigger woman anyway.

It also doesn't mention anything about the mafia. Anna waits to see if Deacon would bring it up himself. He starts humming “I Want to be Your Lady Baby.” How the hell does he even know that song? Anna searches for something to focus on so she won’t start smiling. She finally lands on a mole on the left side of Carrington’s chin.

Except, fuck. Now she’s picturing Carrington watching what he thinks is a very important holotape with top secret information on it, and instead it’s just Deacon doing that stupid dance to that goddamn catchy song.

Annnd the song is stuck in her head. Владь.

Desdemona clears her throat and Deacon cuts it out. She focuses back on Anna. “Fixer?"

“Fixed problems for mafia,” Anna replies.

It was interesting that Deacon didn’t immediately bring up that information himself. But she figures she needs to let them know she already has some experience working for shadowy organizations. See how they react to that. If they have ideological principles against accepting a former mafia hit-woman.

“Oh great, she worked in the mafia,” Carrington immediately says. “Murdering people. And before that, she was a prostitute."

Anna doesn’t bother defending herself against either accusation. It doesn’t matter that gangs were the only protection citizens had against the police. That the cops were armed with military-grade equipment. Only cared about getting food rations to rich neighborhoods while the poor ones were left to starve. Turned tanks and water hoses and tear gas on crowds of people just desperate to survive.

While the Dryomovs secured protection and food rations for their territory, it came at its own price. Any disobedience or disrespect was harshly punished. And they used Anna to do it.

Hell, she’d taken that position voluntarily.

Eagerly.

Damn sure better than starving or sex work.

“Our primary concern is helping synths who have escaped the Institute,” Desdemona says, considering Anna carefully. “Then protecting them until they have their new life set up. We don’t steal from or murder people. Can you follow those rules?"

“Give her a little credit, Dez,” Deacon speaks up before Anna can answer. “She’s already saved a group of settlers from raiders. Got Valentine out of that mess with Malone. Hasn’t caused any trouble on the way down here. That mafia shit was a long time ago."

Desdemona nods, but she still looks at Anna for a response.

Anna shrugs. “Was in twenties. Was asshole."

“Everyone’s an asshole in their twenties,” Deacon helpfully adds. “I’d beat the shit out of twenty-two year old me."

Desdemona shoots him another sharp look. “Being an asshole and killing people for money are two separate things.” She turns back to Anna. “I’d like to know what changed. People don’t give up lives like that on a whim."

“Wanted to start family,” Anna says. Everyone waits for her to explain more, which she does reluctantly. “Made enough money to live well. Then got out. Married. Therapy. Baby."

“She went to therapy, Dez,” Deacon says.

Carrington throws up his hands. “Oh, well if she had a few therapy sessions, by all means."

“Both of you,” Desdemona snaps, leaving the order unfinished. She takes a deep breath before telling Anna, “Report to Sly Nick. He can show you the files we have on all the known abductions the Institute has orchestrated so far, most of them done by Kellog. We’ve been unable to find a pattern to them, but perhaps a fresh pair of eyes will do better."

Anna nods and whistles for Dog to follow her. Deacon starts to follow too until Desdemona calls him back. Then he gives Anna a grin and a cheery wave as he stays behind. She almost hesitates at the door. Sure, she doesn’t like either of the leaders, but that doesn’t mean she likes Deacon. He’s a grown ass adult. Those are his bosses. He can handle himself.

“Nicholas," Desdemona calls down from the upper office. "Take Anna into the records room and show her the abduction files."

The older man Anna had met first meets her at the bottom of the stairs. “Most people just call me Sly Nick. We all have our own handles around here."

Anna nods but doesn’t reply.

"So you're Deacon's new recruit, huh?" he asks after a beat, looking her over. "General something or other?"

"Anna."

“Sly Nick" waits for something else, but that's all she says. That's all he needs to know. Eventually, he speaks up again.

“Alllll right. Follow me then." He leads Anna out of the big main room, through some hallways, and into a smaller room with boxes lining the walls. "This is the records room. Those are the files you want to look at over there."

Anna walks over and grabs the box in the corner Sly Nick gestured to. "Thanks."

He shakes his head. “Nope, sorry, general. All of those boxes. Against that whole wall."

The wall he points to is halfway covered with stacked up boxes. It's the short end of the room, but still. There must be thousands of cases. Dog sticks his nose into one of the boxes and sneezes from all the dust.

"The Institute has strongholds all over the Commonwealth,” he says. "But I guess Deacon told you we can't find their main base, right?"

Anna grunts an affirmation as she sorts through the first box. Some of the pages are yellowed with age. The faded print on them is neat where summaries of the victims have been written by hand. There are even little sketches of the victims' faces in the top left corner in an imitation of a police report.

The silence drags on but Anna doesn't notice. She's too busy reading the first case from a little over fifty years ago. White male, thirty years old. A bit on the short and scrawny side, but that’s probably the average now. She skims through the details quickly. Victim traveling with a caravan. Attacked by Gen 1 synths. The victim was taken alive, everyone else killed except a kid hidden by his mother’s dead body.

“For a while, Deacon told us that was him,” Sly Nick says, nodding at the file when Anna looks up. “The only survivor of the first abduction case, fifty years ago. Hiding under the body of his dead mother. I think now he tells the newbies he’s from a vault where everyone died off except him and a box of puppets."

Anna gives a more neutral grunt. Deacon hasn’t bothered her with any sad, sad sob story. Probably smart enough to see she might throttle him if he tried. She barely has the emotional capacity to process what happened to her. She can’t even comprehend the thought of comforting or feeling sorry for someone else right now.

“What’s he told you?” Sly Nick asks.

“Nothing."

Dog finishes sniffing all the boxes and settles down for a nap beside Anna. Aside from the turning of pages, nothing else moves in the room for a long moment.

Sly Nick sighs. “C’mon. I’m trying to be friendly here. He must have said something."

Anna closes her eyes and breathes deep. Patience. She doesn’t pray anymore, but she takes a moment to ask the universe for patience.

“Logan,” she finally says. “A diamond city guard."

“That’s it?"

Another grunt.

“Tommy said you two knew each other before he made contact with you. So you’ve known him for … what? Three days?"

Anna doesn’t even bother grunting this time. Just moves on to the next case file.

“Fine,” Sly Nick mutters. “But there’s fifty caps on the line if you’ve seen his eye color."

He leaves after that, his aura swirling around in a huff. Dog whines a little when the door shuts harder than necessary. Anna absently reaches down to pet him. Fifty caps for the color of Deacon’s eyes? Do the sunglasses always stay on in here? She feels a brief spark of curiosity but then tamps it down.

The only thing that matters is finding her son.

*******

“Sex worker, fixer, housewife, welder."

The word _welder_ sticks in Deacon’s mind. Anna. Welder. Sticking metals parts together with a blowtorch. That’s what a welder did, right? Building like, plans and tanks and shit?

Pain pulses through his head. He hopes his sunglasses hide the way his eyes squeeze shut for a moment. 

_Maybe the Committee should have taken into consideration that a very strong, very pissed off woman who knows how to build tanks might be kind of upset about waking up to find her husband dead and baby gone._

Then the pain drains out of his head like water out of a sieve. Gone. And with it, the flash of memory he just had. He tries to concentrate on it, but the words are already slipping away. Who said that? Was it about Anna? What committee?

Committee. The memory had included something about a committee. Committee, committee, committee.

What fucking committee?

The sound of Carrington griping about something again yanks Deacon back to the present before he can catch hold of the memory. He might as well try to catch smoke.

“Our primary concern is helping synths who have escaped the Institute."

Deacon very deliberately keeps his breathing steady. Dogmeat looks over and cocks his head but doesn’t give him away. It’s kind of endearing that the dog is concerned for him—can probably smell the knee-jerk fear and anxiety those memories bring up—but he really doesn’t need any extra attention right now.

This is why he doesn’t come back to HQ. Can’t fade away into a crowd here. Everybody knows him.

“… their new life set up. We don’t steal from or murder people. Can you follow those rules?”

Deacon mentally shakes it off and forces himself to get back in the game. “Give her a little credit, Dez. She’s already saved a group of settlers from raiders. Got Valentine out of that mess with Malone. Hasn’t caused any trouble on the way down here. That mafia shit was a long time ago."

He tries to catch her eye and give her a look over the tops of his sunglasses. The Railroad doesn’t judge your past. He damn sure isn’t going to judge Anna for hers, not with the sins of his own gang glory days staining his hands.

“Was in twenties,” Anna tells them by way of explanation. "Was asshole."

Well, if that wasn’t the goddamn truth, Deacon didn’t know what was. He did so much stupid shit in his fucking twenties.

“Everyone’s an asshole in their twenties,” he says to back her up. “I’d beat the shit out of twenty-two year old me."

He’d beat the shit out of himself from twenty all the way up to … right now, actually, if he could manage it. Desdemona glares at him again for his commentary, but he brushes it off.

“Being an asshole and killing people for money are two separate things.” She says before turning to Anna again. “I’d like to know what changed. People don’t give up lives like that on a whim."

“Wanted to start family,” Anna says.

There’s a long pause. Deacon thinks that’s answer enough on its own. Maybe she went too far like he had. Or maybe she was smarter than that and just took an objective look at her shit life and realized she’d always be alone, living like that.

But Dez and Carrington want their pound of flesh for shit that happened over two hundred years ago, that they really have no room to judge about. 

“Made enough money to live well. Then got out. Married. Therapy. Baby,” Anna explains in her usual succinct manner.

Deacon shoots Dez his best puppy eyes. “She went to therapy, Dez."

“Oh, well if she had a few therapy sessions, by all means,” Carrington snarks, throwing up his hands in exasperation.

“Both of you—“ Desdemona cuts herself off and takes a deep breath to calm down. Then she tells Anna, “Report to Sly Nick. He can show you the files we have on all the known abductions the Institute has orchestrated so far, most of them done by Kellog. We’ve been unable to find a pattern to them, but perhaps a fresh pair of eyes will do better."

Anna nods and whistles to Dogmeat to follow her out. But Dez calls Deacon back before he can follow her too, so he settles for waving at her. She pauses for just a fraction of a second, a tiny hiccup in her stride, before walking out the door without acknowledging him.

And the panic-thoughts are back.

Deacon’s had plenty of practice with them however, and he calmly counters the fears that she hates him forever now with more rational explanations about how she’s probably tired, and doesn’t respond much to other people anyway, and hell, maybe he has finally annoyed her with all of his weirdness, but he pisses everyone off eventually and HQ hasn’t changed the passcode on him yet. He’ll give her some space for a bit and it’ll be fine.

“Carrington, go check on Tommy,” Desdemona says after Anna leaves.

The doc scowls at the obvious dismissal, but he exits too without comment. Deacon waves at him on his way out with just one finger. Carrington slams the door. Dez looks tired and disappointed when he turns back to her.

“Do you really have to provoke him every single time?” she asks.

Deacon starts to reply that yes, in fact, he absolutely does and the day he doesn’t, everyone should know that Deacon is obviously a synth replacement, but Desdemona doesn’t give him the chance.

“And what the shit was that about with Tommy?”

Ah, yes. It was Lecture Time. Deacon settles back into his casual lean against the table and gets comfortable. He might be here a while.

“You can’t just endanger a fellow agent like—"

Mm hmm. Being reckless. Not following protocol. Disrespecting other agents. Really off to a strong start, this time.

“And you didn’t report anything about—"

Yep, straight into how he doesn’t share information with her even though she needs to know these things because she’s the Leader of the Railroad™.

“—which I needed to know because I am the goddamn leader of this—"

Damn, he’s good. He should make a bingo card. Free space for not trusting him about something.

“-and I … you know what?” Dez exhales hard and stops yelling. “Fine."

Fuck. The old _I’m not mad I’m just disappointed_. She knows that gets to him.

“Dez, c’mon,” he says, hoping to nip the sad eyes before they really get started. “You said yourself that keeping tabs on the vault was chasing ghosts. I didn’t want to report anything until I was absolutely certain Anna was the real thing."

“Pre-War or not, you still could have told us the Minutemen are making a comeback,” Desdemona insists.

He spreads his arms, palms out in supplication. “Hey, I didn’t know about that until the night before Tommy showed up, and I was a little busy keeping an eye on the new Minutemen General to worry about it."

Desdemona regards him suspiciously. What he said isn’t a lie, exactly. Sure, he’d seen Anna working with Garvey to set up Sanctuary, but he didn’t know she actually took up the mantel as General until she introduced herself as such at the Diamond City gates.

“And then Tommy showed up, so I knew you were going to get a report anyway,” he says. “Who, by the way, was seriously not cool. He made it clear that we knew each other, didn’t put any thought into his cover story, and did everything he could to piss off and alienate her. I didn’t want to blow my cover too by trying to send anything back to you."

“Fine,” Dez repeats with another sigh. “But actually bringing her here? Making an alliance with her is one thing, bringing her into the fold is asking for trouble. She isn’t going to respect me as her leader if she’s already the leader of her own faction."

“But she is cooperating,” Deacon points out.

Dez snorts. “You call that cooperating?"

“That was Anna in a downright sociable mood,” he says. “Way better than what I expected after Carrington almost hit her dog. The last guy who tried that ended up with a set of claws punched through his stomach and wrapped around his spine. She used him like a shake weight."

He makes a jacking off motion with his right hand, which is enough to convey the imagery without Desdemona having any idea what the hell a shake weight is. Deacon only has a vague idea himself. Was it really used to exercise or as an actual sex toy? From an infomercial? A running gag on a hit tv show? Sorting through all the pop culture references the Institute dumped into him for funsies kicks his processor up too high and gives him a headache.

Desdemona crosses her arms with a disapproving scowl at the inappropriate gesture. “You’re not doing a great job of convincing me, here."

“I’ll take her on a run,” Deacon says. “Just a quick one, down to Bunker Hill. Get a feel for how much effort she’s actually willing to put into helping synths, keep her out of your hair for a while. But I’m telling you Dez, she’s going to turn the Commonwealth upside down and getting in on her good side now is an investment you want to make."

“All right,” Desdemona finally agrees. “But if she fucks up the drop off, she’s out."

Deacon grins. “It’s just one tiny little drop off. It’ll be totally fine, I promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: shockingly enough, everything gets fucked sideways to Sunday and is not, in fact, "totally fine."
> 
> also! louminx on tumblr drew fanart of Anna, if you want to see her~ it's super amazingly great, and you should totally follow them! link below:
> 
> http://thisiswhymomworries.tumblr.com/post/146808131063/louminx-louminxs-sketch-giveaway-sole
> 
> (she's in the top right corner)


	10. The Carl Passions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon takes Anna on the "Boston After Dark" run to show her the ropes as a Railroad Agent. He considers the whole mission a success because he makes her laugh ✿◕ ‿ ◕✿

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: Anna discusses the sex work Kotku did in a little more detail, but it's still respectful and no slurs are needed. flagging it just in case though. there's also some violence at the end where Anna does a beautiful parody of Jackass by taking on five Super Mutants by herself without a gun.

Anna rips off the mirelurk’s beady little head. Its claws scrabble uselessly against her mail armor. She’s too close to it for them to work up any momentum and do real damage. They slump down after a moment anyway. She kicks the body off of her and back into the harbor, flicking her wrist to shake the blood off her gauntlet.

“You know, I was skeptical of your ‘hit harder’ strategy at first,” Deacon says from a safe distance across the street. “But running up to things and punching the fuck out of them really does seem to work for you. Pretty spot on with the gouging and maiming, too."

Dog barks and wags his tail as Anna jogs back over to them. She’s normally content to leave the mirelurks alone, but they scare her dog. And anything that scares her dog gets its head ripped off. No exceptions.

“Just so you know,” Deacon continues. “There’s usually more of an introductory period than this. But you’re definitely ah, let’s say, ‘combat certified.’ You good on the covert stuff too or do you need a quick rundown?"

Anna scans the empty street as they keep walking to the drop off location. Nate taught her how to interact with other people in college. Boris trained her to be more than just dumb muscle. She could get by. But she appreciated him asking first instead of explaining to her what a countersign or a hand signal was. If she had a cap for every time a man tried to explain a basic concept she already knew to her, she could fill a swimming pool with them.

“Railroad countersign?” she asks by way of reply.

“It changes every few months,” Deacon says. “Right now we’re using question and answer format.” He turns around to face her and walk backwards. “Do you have a geiger counter?” Switches back to walking normally and answers his own question. “Mine’s in the shop."

Anna grunts her understanding. He points to a scraggly drawing in chalk on a mailbox up ahead.

“That’s our sign for a cache or message,” he says. “If there’s an X there’s enemies, arrows mean you should go in that direction. Pretty basic stuff."

Anna nods. She still looks over the mailbox carefully before opening it. Just because the sign says there’s a message doesn’t mean there isn’t really a bomb or a jury-rigged grenade. Deacon’s aura drifts closer to hers in approval. The only thing inside is a scrap of paper.

HSUCUYW KLUDDWV TMFCWJ ZADD

Deacon sighs. “I’m as cagey as the next paranoid old man, but Stockton puts us all to shame."

Anna works on decoding the message as he speaks. Probably a simple letter shift. She knows Stockton is based in Bunker Hill. The last two words have the right number of letters to spell that out. And it means the shifted alphabet the message is written in starts with “S” instead of “A.” S for Stockton. Paranoid, but not exactly original.

“How are you at cryptography?” Deacon asks her.

Anna crumples the message in her hand. “Package stalled. Bunker Hill."

“Combat, countersigns, cryptography—you’re shaping up to be a real triple threat,” he says with a grin.

Dog lets out an eager bark when Anna throws the wad of paper, but she tosses it in the harbor. He stares down at the water and whines. She gives him a consolation head pat. Maybe Deacon will play-wrestle with him after this. She’s too afraid she’ll actually hurt the dog to roughhouse like that.

They walk in silence for a few minutes after that. Anna waits for any more signal phrases. She and Kotku used certain phrases to signal to each other when they were OK or if something was too much. Signals like that seem like they would be useful in Deacon’s line of work, but he doesn’t say anything more.

“Kotku,” Anna says.

“Sorry, that Russian is Greek to me,” Deacon replies. “That was Russian, right?"

“Кошка,” she repeats. “Russian. Pussycat. Johns couldn’t pronounce it right and called her Kotku."

Deacon's aura perks up a little in interest. Anna watches it closely for any signs of disgust. Men loved their porn and sex workers until they found out a woman they actually knew had done that once. Then they turned ugly about it.

“Someone you knew?” he asks.

Anna thinks about how to answer that. She’d been so in love with Kotku it's still embarrassing to think about. The other woman had also given her the first sense of what a good family could be like. It would be weird to call her a sister because of the hopelessly in love thing, but she was a bit of that too.

“Best friend,” she finally answers. “I kept johns from taking more than they paid for."

Deacon nods. His aura doesn’t recoil at all. Anna tries to look at his face and decipher anything his expression might tell her. Aside from that being a lost cause to start with, he still has his sunglasses on. She can only see his mouth and the very tops of his eyebrows. If he had negative opinions of Kotku’s work, his lips would tighten into a line, right? But then sometimes disapproval was expressed through pursed lips. Or frowning lips. Unless frowns came mostly from the eyebrows?

Anna gives up on trying to figure it out when he speaks.

“Good for you two,” he says. “Must have been nice for her, having someone to watch her back."

Anna nods. “Had phrases. For safety. Do you?"

“Uh, well.” Deacon gives a self-deprecating chuckle. “I don’t really play well with others. Haven’t worked with a partner for a looong time, either. So, not at the moment, no."

Anna cocks her head. “If you’re in trouble? No way to signal to HQ?"

He shrugs, still grinning. “It’s fine. I’m like a stray tomcat. I always show up meowing at their door eventually."

She frowns. “You are person."

“Um, yes. But in the metaphor, I mean that I—"

She cuts him off with a shake of her head. “Should be treated like person. Not extra cat too ugly to be house pet."

“Oh.” Deacon doesn’t reply for a moment before he switches the subject. “So, do you mind sharing those top secret phrases, or is that classified information?"

Anna stops and pets Dog to have something to do while she thinks about it. Her dog is always happy for the attention, and he deserves it for being patient about no play time while they work.

She didn’t start this conversation intended to share what she and Kotku used. Only to see if the Railroad already had preexisting extraction phrases for a mission gone wrong. She could say it was “classified.” Deacon had given her that out. But having those phrases could be useful if whatever had stalled the package turned out to be something big.

“Oh, you know,” Anna says in a pitch that means her voice is “casual."

Deacon’s eyebrows appear over his sunglasses. “Is that the first phrase or am I supposed to actually know something?"

“Means, ‘go with me on this one’,” she says. “‘Don’t worry about it’ is the response."

He nods. “All right."

“‘That’s just my opinion’ is get me out."

Deacon raises his hand. “Does it need to be screamed?"

“Not unless you’re on a reality tv show,” Anna deadpans.

He laughs. “I’ll keep that in mind if I’m ever on the Car Fashions."

She stares at him.

“The Carb Rations?” he tries again.

She frowns. Dog looks back and forth between the two of them and cocks his head at Deacon.

“Wait, hold on, I’ll get it,” he says. “The … Card Cashions?"

Anna barks out a laugh as she finally gets it. “Kardashians."

Deacon snaps his fingers. “Yes! Thank you. Whew. That would have bothered me forever."

She grins at him. “Can keep going."

“The Carl Passions. The Cart Bastions. The Carp Rash Eons."

*******

He made her laugh. If he's honest, it was an ugly sound, like coughing up glass, but Deacon will be damned if he starts being honest now. He also isn't interested in looking too hard at why it's so important that she like him. Getting Anna Howard on the Railroad's side before she starts putting factions under is a tactically sound move, and that's the bullshit he's sticking to.

They come up to Bunker Hill on the side with the big ass statue out front, and Anna presses close for a moment.

"Here."

She gives him her bag of caps again, at least five hundred, easy. Just hands it over to him, which he quickly pockets before anyone else notices the cash she's slinging around.

"This for my comedic commentary?" he jokes. "Usually I have to use this silver tongue a bit more ... creatively, to get this amount of caps."

He waggles his eyebrows at her, but she frowns slightly.

"You work?" she asks.

Ah, shit. He should have known she wouldn't let that joke pass by. He'd been tempted to say something about his "working girl" past earlier, when she mentioned her friend. Not like he had many skills after he escaped, terrified and paranoid and half-wiped.

Maybe a bit more than half.

But true or not, she might not have believed him. Might have thought he was just bullshitting her, making up a past in common with her dead best friend to get her to trust him. Not a great move on his part.

Deacon shrugs. "Did for a while, when I was young and didn't know how to do much else. Settlements aren't too keen on taking people in who can't contribute, so unless you know how to farm, shoot, or fix something, you're out of luck. But!" He adopts a lighter tone and grins at her. "No matter where you go, no matter the time, the people, the economy--there is always going to be a demand for blowjobs. Praise the Lord, Amen."

"That's not how the Holy Spirit should come inside you," she says flatly.

For a split second, he thinks that was serious and she's actually offended. Then he catches the gleam of amusement in her eyes before she turns away to scan the marketplace. Deacon sidles up a little closer, although he’s careful not to let their sides actually touch. Being this close to her is a vast improvement from the three feet of space minimum he was working with while also trying to patch her up from going toe-to-talon with a deathclaw.

“There’s a bar over there where we can get some drinks,” he says, nodding in its direction.

Anna hums in acknowledgment, rather than her usual grunt. It’s a tiny, tiny baby step that’s really more of a faltering shuffle, but it’s still progress, and Deacon will gladly take it.

The sun isn’t far down enough for the nighttime crowd at the bar, just the usual drunks who plop their asses down as soon as the bar opens and drink through the night until the bar closes, they pass out, or someone forces them to go home. Not necessarily in that order.

“… half-tempted to join the Railroad,” Tony grumbles as they walk up, making a fruitless effort to wipe down a counter stained into oblivion. “With all this shit."

Well. Deacon would say he couldn’t have planned it better himself, but he could have. Tony isn’t actually affiliated with them in any way, so this conversation is entirely real, but the timing makes it too good to be true. Someone just so happens to be talking about how good it would be to join the Railroad on Anna’s first mission out? Smells like propaganda.

Goddammit.

“That’s our mutual friend over there,” he tells her, pointing out Old Man Stockton and hoping to steer her away from this cosmic blunder.

“Shit, I don’t know, Dad! People got to do something though,” Tony is still arguing in the background.

“Well, I gotta sit down,” Deacon says loudly, drawing up a stool. “Whew! One helluva hike up here from DC, I’ll tell you that. And trying to follow _her_? I feel like I’m walking on noodles. Ain’t nothing gonna be hard from my belt down for three days."

“Said same thing last night,” Anna replies.

Deacon gives an overdramatic wince to buy himself some time to readjust how this conversation will go. He expected her to either stay silent or head straight for Stockton, not play along with the act. Tony and his dad both snicker, but the dad at least shoots him a sympathetic look after. His name was … Joe. Right, Joe.

“Listen honey, I saw a mirelurk vagina,” he says, making up the wildest bullshit he could pull straight out of his ass as he goes along. “And I’m sorry, I love you, you light up my life and my loins, but I’m going to need at least half a bottle of whiskey to bleach that out of my mind."

“How in the shit did you see a mirelurk vagina?” Joe asks.

Anna scoffs at him.

“I did, I saw it, and I swear to God, it clamped down on my foot like you wouldn’t believe!” Deacon says, raising his right hand up like he’s testifying.

“Was not vagina,” Anna retorts. “Was … flesh wound. Something."

“Yeah, it was a flesh wound if that’s what we’re calling them nowadays,” Deacon says. “But I didn’t think you liked those dirty euphemisms."

“Bah!” Anna rolls her eyes. “ _Dirty euphemisms_. Calling your penis a ‘yogurt shotgun’ was not euphemism. Was mood killer. You not hard below belt? Hah! Nothing down here for me either. Like Sahara."

_Shit, shit, goddammit, fuck. Do not laugh. Don’t laugh. Yogu—no, don’t even think about it._

Deacon struggles to keep his face straight, looking wounded even, as Tony and Joe burst out laughing. He wonders where she learned to act and how long she can keep it up. Then he shakes himself out of it and puts on his best petulant voice.

“Now honey, that’s not fair. You know I—"

But Anna is shaking her head, tsking at him. “You stay. Drink. Я буду говорить с другом."

Deacon catches what he thinks is the word “speak” and then “friend” at the end, so he assumes she means she’s going to go talk to Stockton.

“Да. Прощай,” he says, the words feeling clumsy in his mouth.

Anna gives that same little hum again. “Пока."

Then she’s gone, wandering around the marketplace, on a slow circuit that will lead her casually back to Old Man Stockton. Dogmeat glances back at him, but chooses to follow her in the end. More people to sniff going her way, Deacon supposes.

“Women,” Joe says, well enough after she leaves that she won’t be able to hear.

Deacon shrugs with a smile. “Aw, she’s all right. Carried me a good portion up here, with my sprained ankle bummed up like this. We just tease each other, is all. I’ll get her back for that later."

“You travel around much?” Tony asks.

“Get the man a bottle before you go bothering him,” Joe tells his son. “Twenty caps, of course."

Deacon finally takes his pack off and lets it drop down, albeit near his feet and with the strap laying against his leg where he can grab it at a moment’s notice. He’d slipped Anna’s stash of caps in there earlier, but he draws on his own small bag of caps, nestled against his stomach beneath his shirt like a thin fanny pack. Couldn’t be too careful in the ‘Wealth.

“Thank you muchly,” he says, handing the caps over and accepting the bottle from Tony with a nod.

“You ever come across the Railroad while traveling around?” the kid asks.

Shit. Back on that again. Deacon knew he should turn this into a recruiting opportunity, but fuck it. He hated doing that. Actually preferred to try to discourage people from joining instead. The work they did was hard, thankless, and dangerous. Aside from not wanting young people with actual futures ahead of them getting sucked into that, there was also the danger of someone joining up, but then wanting to back out as soon as they got a good look at the messy reality.

And there wasn’t exactly a retirement plan in place. Dez couldn’t just let people go with a super pinky promise not to rat them out to the Brotherhood, or start blabbing around in bars where an Institute synth infiltrator might hear.

If someone wants to join the Railroad, Deacon wants to be sure they really want it.

“Can’t say that I have,” he answers, taking a thoughtful swig while he pretends to ponder it. “But hell, I ain’t been looking for ‘em. Don’t have anything against synths myself, but the way I hear it, the Railroad don’t do much for humans, so I guess I ain’t really got much use for them."

Joe nods along in righteous agreement. “Yeah, you hear that, Tony? They don’t do nothing for humans like us."

“But they’re the only ones standing up against the Institute,” Tony insists.

“Ah, well.” Deacon hates to say this, he really does. Burns worse than the rotgut whiskey. “Didn’t the Brotherhood declare war or something on them?"

Tony sneers. “The Brotherhood! The fuck they ever done for us? So, let’s see. Gary’s wife, kidnapped. That settlement Lucas was talking about? Wiped out. Everyone’s scared they’re gonna be next. And all the Brotherhood’s done so far is take our food and fuck off back to that floating small dick compensation blimp."

Deacon pretends to take another swig of whiskey to hide his smirk. He’s had plenty of years of practice at pretending to drink without getting drunk.

“They come around sometimes though and clear out the Super Mutants,” he says. “Keep the raiders away. No one wants the Gunners getting too close, that’s for damn sure. Better than a sharp stick in the eye, and to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure the Railroad is a real thing. What kinda name is that anyhow?"

Joe slaps his open palm on the counter, making his own bottle jump and rattle. “Damn straight! You listen to him, Tony, listen to … to uh … sorry fellah, didn’t catch your name."

Deacon glances over to his right during his next fake drink and spots Anna talking to Stockton. At least her timing worked out well. He mumbles something in Russian that Joe won’t have a prayer of pronouncing correctly by way of answer and stands up, already slinging his pack back around his shoulders.

“Sorry to cut this short boys, but my wife, she ain’t a fan of dawdling,” Deacon says. “Catch you next time we come around though."

He tips his hat and starts walking off, but Joe yells out after him.

“Hey, watch yourself around Cambridge! There’s a new pack of Super Mutants set up in there."

“Will do,” he calls back over his shoulder.

Anna is just finishing up getting the scoop from Stockton about their delayed package, so he thinks they’re good to go, until she grabs his elbow and leads him over to a wall. Deacon walks with her willingly, but he’s already running through worst case scenarios in his head.

“Sword,” Anna hisses to him under her breath.

“Uh, that’s not a passcode we covered—"

“There."

She jerks him around and pushes him against the wall. Then she has to slouch down a bit, leaning forward and bracing her arm over his head so he can stand up on his toes to look over her shoulder. The stall across the market from them sells weapons, and there’s a sword about as long and thick as his leg laying proudly across the counter.

“Nate’s,” Anna murmurs, close enough that the word pushes her breath across his neck. “Raiders looted our house. His sword."

Deacon winces. Shit. Suddenly spotting a prized possession of her dead husband, looted from the ruins of their house and now on sale for anyone to have must be some kind of shit in her oatmeal.

“Weapon like that is going to run … a little under two thousand caps?” Deacon says in a low whisper. “Seventeen, eighteen hundred."

“Have five.” She draws back enough to look at him. “Haggle?"

He understands. Can he haggle the merchant down from eighteen hundred to five hundred caps. Christ. He takes a deep breath.

“I can try."

*******

Anna watches from the sidelines. She barely resists the urge to pace. Dog waits by her side until Deacon calls him over after a few minutes. Using literal puppy dog eyes to barter the merchant down, she supposes.

In the end, Deacon walks away with the sword. No caps left, but Anna doesn’t care about that.

“All right, so I got the sword, but our buddy here got the scabbard thrown in too,” he says, presenting them both to her.

Anna doesn’t waste any time in strapping the scabbard to her belt. The sword reflects the last of the sunset light when she draws it to examine the blade. A few chips and notches. The edge needs to be sharpened. No rust though. Ultimately better than what she’d hoped for.

“So how much can you chop through with that baby?” Deacon asks.

Anna tests the weight. “Human."

The sword balances OK when she holds the handle with one hand. Not dipping low at the end. The blade itself was five feet, with the hilt bringing the overall total to nearly seven. Anna knows the precise measurements are eighty inches and six pounds, seven ounces.

“A … whole human?” Deacon asks more slowly. “In one slice?"

Anna grips the sword with both hands now. She does a few cautious practice swings. She’d practiced with it a little in the last few years, mostly just for stress relief. But the last time she actually fought with it was over fifteen years ago. In a medieval reenactment battle.

She feels a brief spark of affection for Nate. He’d been such a nerd. Always suave and cool, he tried to downplay that side of him. But she remembers how his face lit up when he spoke—ranted, sometimes—about the injustices of Hollywood portrayals of knights.

Maybe he truly wanted to be her white knight. At first. Before he signed up for the army and they pumped him full of X-Cell. Before he started needing more drugs to keep him steady in between doses. Before he started cheating on her.

Anna sheathes the sword. Swinging around an almost seven pound broadsword could really fuck up the muscles in her arms and back if she gets sloppy. She couldn’t afford to get angry while wielding a beast like that.

“Ready now,” she announces.

Deacon nods. He’s still looking at her. His aura swirls around him. It hasn’t flinched back yet, so she doesn’t think she’s scared him. He blinks and makes eye contact with her after a second.

“Yeah.” He grins at her. “Let’s make like a tree, and branch out."

“You do that on purpose,” Anna notes as she follows him. “Mess up saying."

“Who? Me?” He shakes his head. “Ma’am, I’ll have you know I’m just a simple country boy."

“Is that why you said name was potato?"

“Is that what I said?"

“Картошка. Potato."

“Huh."

They’re quiet for a moment as they leave the trading post. Then Deacon starts up again.

“Ma’am, I’ll have you know I’m just a simple potato farmer."

Anna snorts. A second later, she catches herself. She’s been slipping. Letting on how funny she thinks he is. That she might even enjoy his company. She doesn’t like to talk, but she hates silence.

And now he’s one up on her with a favor. She hasn’t been subtle about how much she wanted Nate’s sword back. Deacon got it for her. If she doesn’t settle this score now, he’ll ask for a favor in return at some point. Maybe it will be something simple. Kill that person. Get me that thing. Risk your life for blah-blah. Fine.

But maybe he’ll talk about how nice he’s been to her. Cheering her up with jokes. Playing with her dog. _I even got your husband’s sword back for you, remember? I’m a nice guy. Why can’t you give me a chance? I’m only asking for one little blowjob._

“What do you want?” she asks, then thinks to clarify. “For sword."

Deacon shrugs. “Don’t worry about it."

She stops in the street and crosses her arms.

“Consider it an investment on my part,” he says. “You, with that big ass sword, the linky-chain stuff over a bright blue vault suit, six goddamn feet tall … anything comes at us, they’ll sure as hell notice you first. I like not being noticed. Especially by deathclaws."

Anna continues to stare flatly at him. They’re not moving on until they settle on the price of the sword. Not any of this “investment” ambiguous bullshit. One clear thing that he wants, that she can do, so they’re even for the sword and he can’t bring it up again.

“You drive a tough bargain,” he says with a chuckle, then his voice abruptly turns serious. “I get one free lie."

Anna cocks her head in consideration.

“One time I get to lie to you about something, and no hard feelings,” he continues. “No guilt about betrayal, no retaliation, nothing. A freebie."

“Can’t be about Shaun,” she immediately says.

Not something that would put him in danger. No using him to manipulate her into killing someone who had nothing to do with his kidnapping. Nothing like that.

“I accept that condition,” Deacon says.

Anna thinks about it. She already expects men to lie to her anyway. Most likely he’ll lie and say she really has to go do something dangerous when she doesn’t actually need to. That’s fine. She’s confident in her ability to murder her way out of most situations.

And if the lie is something really bad, that causes the death of a child or one of her settlers, it’s not like he’ll have the moral high ground to be upset if she flat out breaks her promise not to be mad.

“Can’t hurt Dog,” she adds.

His aura whorls a bit faster as if he’s hurt she would think he would. “Of course."

Anna gives a slow nod. “All right."

“Conditions usually come in sets of three,” Deacon says. “Sure you don’t want to tack on another one real quick?"

This time Anna shrugs. “That’s all I care about."

“OK then,” he says after a moment. “You get the sword, I get one free lie. Deal?"

“Deal."

*******

"So, the plan is," Deacon whispers, crouching down to hide in the shadows of the alleyway. "We sneak around the Super Mutants, get to the church, and wait for the package to be delivered there. Then we can escort it to the safehouse, taking out any raider that pop up along the way."

Anna kneels next to him. He figures it's a fifty-fifty toss up on whether or not she follows his lead. She's been the boss so far, and that hasn't bothered him, but he wants to see if she'll recognize that he's the senior agent supposed to be showing her the ropes on this mission.

"Should hit them now," she says. "Leave them, might get pinchered between them and raiders."

"Is that what you want to do?" he asks.

Anna regards him carefully and finally says, "Suggesting."

He arches an eyebrow over the top of his sunglasses. "And if I say we try to avoid the conflict altogether?"

She shrugs. "Your mission. Your stupid decision."

So she'll go with him, but not without making it clear exactly what she thinks. Deacon doesn't bother holding back a grin. Loyalty, but with a healthy dose of disrespect for authority. Now that's his kind of attitude.

"Give me the percentage of us taking on a whole pack of Super Mutants and not only surviving, but making it to the drop location in time, and in good enough shape we'll actually be able to protect the package," he says.

Anna turns and surveys the Super Mutants milling around the plaza. They've got a couple of blood bags strung up, at least one mutant hound, and there are four of them--wait, five. The fifth is lurking up on the fire escape of the building. Two versus five, and a dog on each team.

Deacon glances over to watch Anna next. Her eyes dart across the plaza as she maps out a plan of attack and runs through each scenario. It's still weird to him to work with a heavy who actually uses strategy. The one and only plan Glory ever needs is to, and he quotes, "fuck them up." At least Anna seems to plan out her moves a little farther than "hit them hard."

"Eighty to ninety," she says.

"What's the ten point range about?" he asks.

"Ninety--sword will make this easy. Eighty ..." Anna pats the sword fondly, but pauses with a grimace. "Haven't used for years."

Normally, Deacon wouldn't even consider a plan like this. But normally he doesn't work with a partner either, and him against five Super Mutants is not a match he'd like to place betting odds on. With the addition of Anna and Dogmeat however, it could be doable. She's right about the risk of getting caught in between the mutants and the raiders if they try to sneak through, and then they'll all be fucked. Hell, dealing with the mutants now might be the less risky option.

He looks back out at the Super Mutants. "Run me through the plan you've got."

"Make distraction," she says. "I go in, hit them from behind."

"Am I the one making the distraction?"

She shakes her head. "No. You wait with Dog."

Now both eyebrows make an appearance over his sunglasses. "You're going to take them on all by yourself?"

"Ehhh." Anna looks him over. "Cover fire? Try to shoot mutant on fire escape."

"You don't want Dogmeat going in with you?" Deacon asks.

“Нет." She loops an arm around the dog and draws him closer to her. He wags his tail and pants happily at the attention. "He is small."

Deacon has to admit she's got a point there. Dogmeat might be combat trained, but one hit from a Super Mutant could send him flying. Still, he doesn't like Anna's odds against the Super Mutants on her own, even with him laying down cover fire.

"How about," he suggests.

Anna's face hardens back into her typical scowl, but he valiantly presses on.

"I let Dogmeat go about two minutes after you've gone in," he says. "All of their attention will be on you, and they won't be expecting a second rear attack. He can run in, pull some of their aggro off of you for a moment, then I'll call him back. If we're lucky, I'll have taken out Fire Escape Mutant by then, and Dog can lure one of the Plaza Mutants back here for me to ambush. Then you're only three on one."

_Only_ three Super Mutants versus one human. Jesus, Anna had a way of warping his perspective.

She thinks about it for a long moment, before nodding. “Да. You _will_ call him back."

"Yes, ma'am," he answers under her stern gaze. "So, uh, what's the distraction?"

Anna motions for him to stay back and takes off without answering. Deacon has to grab for Dogmeat's collar to keep him from following as she skirts a nearby building, running in a low crouch. For someone so big, she moves shockingly quiet, staying unnoticed as she drops down for cover behind a rusted car. He sees her hands grip onto the handle of the car door closest to her, but he doesn't realize what she's going to do until she rips the whole door off, stands up, and throws it back the direction she came. The motion is so quick and fluid, she's back down behind the car again before the mutants turn around.

"What? Who's there?"

"Show yourself!"

Two of the Super Mutants immediately go to investigate, but the idiots go check out the car door instead of thinking to look for who threw it in the first place. While the other two mutants are turned to watch their brothers--siblings? Deacon's pretty sure he's not the only one smooth down there, although it doesn't help his nonexistent self-esteem to know he shares something in common with a Super Mutant--go kick the car door, Anna darts out into the plaza and strikes.

There's a flash of light off the blade, and then her sword thrusts all the way through one of the mutants, bursting out its chest. Deacon draws his own weapon and waits for a good line on the Fire Escape Mutant. 10mm guns aren't much for power or accuracy, but they're small and relatively quiet, as far as guns go. A good lightweight firearm for getting out of tight spots, but if he's going to draw attention to himself with gunfire, he needs it to count.

Meanwhile, he keeps half an eye on Anna, just in case. The first mutant is down on the ground, but now she's one-on-one with the other mutant, with the two others rushing back over to join in. Her sword bats away the mutant's tire iron with ease, and then chops right through its hand. Deacon loses focus for a moment, unable to resist watching the hand fall to the ground, also distracted by the Super Mutant's bellowing roar of pain.

Easy. God _damn._

He'd known in an abstract way that a seven pound sword with a five foot blade was nothing to fuck around with, but seeing it in action ... no fucking wonder Anna estimated their chances at ninety percent. Now he's really only surprised she didn't go higher.

Which, of course, is when the universe decides to prove him wrong. And completely fuck him over. Deacon and the universe have a love-hate relationship like that.

The mutant hound makes an appearance, the one thing their plan forgot to account for. And with him all googly-eyed over the hand thing, his grip on Dogmeat's collar loosens just enough for the dog to jerk out of his grasp and run out into the plaza to protect his mistress from the new enemy dog on the scene.

Plus, chopping that mutant's hand off only made it angrier and now Anna is trying to fight off the other two mutants. He only has a moment to watch her duck under a mutant's swing, grab the car door off the ground by its inside handle, and come back up with it as a makeshift shield. Then the next thing drawing his attention is--

Beep beep beep!

_Fuck fuck fuck!_ his internal monologue helpfully supplies. A sixth Super Mutant, one of those motherfucking suiciders, that they hadn't noticed before. He steps out of the alley to look for it and spots it running straight on for the fight. Moron is going to blow up itself, Anna, and all its friends.

Deacon fires off three rounds, at least two of which hit it in the chest. The suicider doesn't slow down or even seem to notice. And then there's yet another roar.

"Puny human!"

He glances over for a split second to see his old buddy Fire Escape Mutant pull out a missile launcher.

Yeah. Life just handed him a whole steaming pile of lemons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Кошка -- pussycat, kitten. "Kotku" is actually a bastardized nickname of this word, and sort of a cute, but also a little bit cheeky, endearment a sleazy guy might call his girlfriend
> 
> Я буду говорить с другом -- I will go talk with friend.
> 
> Хорошо, прощай -- OK, goodybe.
> 
> Пока -- Bye.
> 
> Картошка -- Potato.
> 
> ...
> 
> **coming up next:** Deacon gets a little bit hot and bothered by watching Anna chop a Super Mutant in half ...
> 
> **EDIT:** I'm now taking writing commissions!  >1,000 word fics for $5, 1,000 - 5,000 w/c for $15, and 5,000 - 10,000 w/c for $30. you can check out my commissions page on my tumblr blog for more info at http://www.thisiswhymomworries.tumblr.com/commissions


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> super long chapter this time where Anna and Deacon finish up Boston After Dark, and he shames her for her junk collecting tendencies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: a lot of violence in this chapter, and Dogmeat gets hurt. no graphic descriptions of violence against him or him being in pain though. no one needs that. Anna also has a nonverbal episode and there's mentions of the child abuse she suffered. again, not in graphic detail.

Deacon has to choose between taking out the Super Mutant with the missile launcher or the suicider mutant running at him. It’s a shit choice no matter what, both options ending with the other one blowing them all up anyway.

He chooses the suicider, his processor whirring in his ears while time moves at a crawl. His gun is already up and aimed at the suicider. Turning and aiming at the Fire Escape Mutant is going to take a precious second he doesn’t have.

There’s the dirty and simple self-preservation angle too. Shooting at the suicider before has gotten it to run at him instead of Anna fighting in the middle of the plaza. He definitely won’t survive the suicide explosion, and it’s too late to turn and run. But he’s far enough away from the plaza that he might survive the missile explosion.

Anna’s tough enough that she might too, right?

No time to reassure his conscience. Deacon fires two more rounds at the suicider, a neat double tap into its head. He thinks one bullet goes through, but they might have both reflected off the mutant’s thick skull. It doesn’t matter. The mutant keeps charging, carried forward by rage and momentum.

Hit them hard. In desperation, Deacon takes a page out of Anna’s playbook and runs at the mutant. He hopes Anna runs too, gets the fuck out of there and behind some kind of cover—anything at all. In the meantime, his charge has confused the mutant enough that it slows down.

Deacon doesn’t slow at all. He actually smacks into the mutant’s chest a little bit before he rights himself, shoves his gun up under its chin, and shoots off his last two rounds. The mutant staggers and starts to sway. There’s a roar from his left, presumably the Fire Escape Mutant hefting up the missile launcher and taking aim.

The suicider mutant falls on top of him, taking him to the ground _hard_. He’s more concerned with grabbing the mutant’s hand than trying to get out from under it. He has a second to see the detonator tightly gripped inside the big green hand, the red button on top safely un-pushed.

Then the missile hits.

Even protected by the body of the mutant on top of him, Deacon can feel the heat as the explosion rushes through the plaza. He blinks, coughs, blinks again. His ears are ringing from the force of a missile going off practically at point blank range. He can’t hear any signal that Anna survived, not even a scream.

But maybe that’s good, he supposes as he stares up at the night sky. She either got to cover in time or she died quick. Fuck. This is why he doesn’t work with a partner. His definition of the word “good” should not be “at least she died quickly."

“FUCK YOUR MISSILE!"

The scream is guttural and sounds like stone being torn apart. For a moment, it’s the most beautiful sound Deacon’s ever heard.

He bursts into movement, scrambling to push and crawl his way out from beneath the mutant. He’s gotten his arms and torso free, attempting to army crawl and yank his legs out too, when he sees Anna stand up in the wreckage. The three mutants that had her surrounded are lying on the ground, two of them on fire. But Anna is standing tall, her silhouette lit up by the flames.

“I’ll crush you!” Fire Escape Mutant yells down at her.

Anna responds with another scream, wordless this time, nothing but raw anger. Deacon’s heard that sound before. From people with nothing left to lose, who don’t care whether they live or die, and are about to do something incredibly stupid.

He squirms and manages to tug one leg free. Anna contemptuously throws the car door she’d used as a shield to the side. It clatters across the plaza, burned black on one side. She must have hunkered down beneath that when the missile hit, and the other mutants surrounding her probably shielded her with their big dumb bodies too. He can’t understand why she didn’t just cut and run though until he spots Dogmeat lying on the ground.

She’d stayed to shield her dog.

_Fuck_ , if that dog is dead, Deacon doubts her already precarious mental health will be able to hold on.

The ground shakes when the Fire Escape Mutant lands, having opted to simply jump down rather than take the stairs. Deacon finally yanks his other leg free and staggers to his feet. He runs for the dog first. He knows better than to get in the way of a pissed off grieving mother wielding a fucking broadsword.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Deacon drops to his knees in front of Dogmeat. “You still with me, buddy?"

There’s a moment of silence, then Dog whines and opens his eyes. He looks up at Deacon and thumps his tail weakly.

“Good boy,” Deacon breathes. “Good boy, just hold—"

The Super Mutant behind him lets out another roar, and he instinctively hunches over the dog, looking over his shoulder to assess the threat. Just in time to watch Anna slam her sword into the mutant’s side. The blade cuts so deep, he can’t tell where it even stops. She yanks it out and chops again, then kicks the body off her sword. The mutant falls to the ground in a gushing fountain of blood—and two separate pieces. Torso and legs.

She _had_ said she could hack through a human. Guess it took an extra swing for a Super Mutant.

Deacon swallows hard, then risks calling out to her. “Dogmeat is alive!"

She doesn’t respond.

“Он ещё жив,” he yells, hoping that’s right. “He needs a stim!"

That finally gets her moving. Deacon takes off his jacket and uses it to slow the bleeding on a bite mark around Dog’s leg. His fur is a little singed, but other than that, it appears his only injury is one from the mutant hound and the pure shock of the explosion. A stimpack would stop the bleeding and fix up his leg, and he’d be good as new.

Deacon realizes he’s been narrating all of that out loud when he has to pause to take a breath. Anna crouches down on the other side of Dogmeat with his pack retrieved from the alley. He quickly grabs a stim out of it and gives the dog a little tummy rub with one hand while his other sticks the needle in. Dog whines again, but he stays still.

“Good boy, such a brave boy,” Deacon says.

Dogmeat’s tail thumps against the ground again, a little harder this time as the stim starts to work.

“It’s OK, buddy, everything’s fine now,” he says, hoping his words will get through to Anna too. “You’ll be good again in a minute, and all the big baddies are dead. Everything’s fine."

Anna doesn’t respond. Dog gets impatient after a moment and gets up. He doesn’t put any weight on his injured hind leg, but he limps closer to Anna without any problems. She slowly leans forward to rest her head against his neck. She’s covered in blood, kneeling on the ground with her arms dangling at her sides.

“I think I need a smoke break after that,” Deacon says quietly. “I’ll be right back."

He gets up and walks away to give her a moment alone. Just in case, he walks the perimeter of the plaza to make sure no other big baddies heard their fight and have headed this way. The ruins of the city are quiet though.

By the time he circles back around, Anna is sitting cross-legged, wiping the blood off her blade with a rag. Dogmeat is laying next to her, not on his side, but normally, his eyes bright and clear. Deacon crouches back down next to them.

“How are you doing?” he asks her.

“Хорошо."

Always that word with her. Fine. I’m fine. It’s fine. But he knows better to push.

“All right,” he says. “Do you have any burns?"

Anna shrugs. She’d put up the hood on her chain mail before the fight, so her head had been partially shielded. The metal is a little bit blackened with soot though, and stray strands of sweat-damp hair have come loose to droop down across her forehead. Her hands had obviously been shielded by her gauntlets, and Deacon is pretty sure her vault suit beneath the mail is treated to be fire resistant.

His mind flashes back to how she looked standing tall and defiant in the middle of the flames. For the first time, he really processes what just happened. Anna got shot with a missile and the worst it did was maybe knock her over for a moment--and then she got back up and chopped a Super Mutant in half.

Deacon can't help the shiver of arousal that shoots through him, but he can damn sure repress and ignore it.

“Cuts or bruises?” he asks next to stay focused.

She keeps working in silence. There’s a lot of blood slicked across the blade. The rag isn’t doing much to help, but she keeps at it. Deacon waits in silence. He needs to know if she’s injured before they go retrieve the package.

“Back will hurt,” she finally mutters.

Deacon nods in sympathy. “It only gets worse when you hit your forties. And if you keep slinging a monster sword like that around, you’re going to be hobbling by the time you reach my age."

She looks up at him, an emotion finally sparking behind her eyes as she tilts her head to the side in silent question.

“I get the occasional face change,” he tells her. “I like to keep people on their toes like that. It keeps me looking pretty good for my old age, too."

He playfully turns his head to the side and hits her with some smolder. She glances over his face once and gives an unimpressed grunt. Then, to his surprise, she blushes. It’s not something he ever would have expected, but the blush is clearly visible on her pale skin as she registers that she pretty much just insulted him. She opens her mouth like she’ll try to say something nice to soften the blow, but then she closes it again and stares down at her sword, as if she couldn’t think of anything nice to say about his face.

Deacon laughs. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I work very hard to make sure my face stays perfectly average. Handsome is memorable. I know I’m pretty plain-looking."

Her hunched up shoulders relax and she peeks back up at him. “Like potato."

He grins at her. “Таркошка, that’s my name."

Anna doesn’t exactly smile, but her lips twitch a little bit and her eyes soften. Good. No more screaming. Deacon’s heard enough of that to last the entirety of his unnatural lifetime.

“We good to go?” he asks.

She nods and gives up trying to clean the blade. They both stand, and Dogmeat gets up too, tenderly putting weight on his leg.

“Good boy. Let’s go."

*******

The church is empty when they get there. Anna hesitates at the doorway. She hasn't been inside a church since she married Nate. Twenty-one. Naive. Believing all his lies. Their wedding day had been a disaster. Married and separated in the same afternoon.

Deacon turns and looks back at her. He opens his mouth, but she steps inside before he can say something. She doesn't want to talk about it.

Sitting in a pew brings back memories anyway. Singing old hymns. Kneeling for prayer. Brother Bill took forever to pray. So many prayer sessions she believed judgment day would come and go before he said Amen. Her knees scuffed and sore from kneeling on the hard wooden floors. Waiting for her father to grab her by the back of the neck and drag her up to the altar to be prayed over. Shoved down over it, her face pressed into the polished wood, him growling at her to confess--

Anna stands back up fast enough that Deacon looks around, searching for a threat that's only in her head. She paces along the length the church. It's in ruins. There's nothing bad left anymore. There's hardly anything left at all. One of the back walls has crumbled down to reveal a few rooms in the back. An office and probably a Sunday school room for the kids.

She avoids the latter and looks in the office instead. Dogmeat sniffs around and pokes his nose against a gleam of metal buried under a pile of dust and molded paper. Anna pulls it out to reveal a desk fan. Dogmeat gives a proud bark and wags his tail eagerly. She puts the fan in her pack so he can feel like he found something important. The screws in it might be useful for something at least.

There isn't anything else interesting in the office, so she returns to the front of the church. Deacon is still kicked back in one of the pews. She leans against the wall beside him while they wait.

"Find anything good, boss?" he asks. "Any sexy nun outfits in my size?"

"Desk fan."

"I'm ... not sure that's worth picking up."

"You're not worth picking up," Anna grumps back.

Then she feels bad. Two minutes inside a church and she's already called someone worthless. Victims often mimic their abusers. At least, that's what the self-help books said.

But Deacon laughs and doesn't seem to take offense. "Well not without a sexy nun outfit, obviously."

Anna relaxes a little bit. They fall into silence for a few minutes. She's not good at starting conversations, but being left alone with her thoughts starts to wear on her fast. Thankfully, Deacon doesn't seem capable of staying quiet for long.

"So were broadswords a common part of welding or just regular housewife requirements?"

Anna opens her eyes. She didn't realize they'd been squeezed shut. The swirling blue of Deacon's aura draws her attention. Brother Bill had a thick blue aura like that. She passed many church services gazing into it as he testified, letting the pain in her body and the rest of the church fade away. She leans more of her weight against the wall and wills herself to relax into that same calm again.

"College," she says.

"Oh yeah?" Deacon drapes his arm across the back of the pew, looking just as at ease in a house of worship as he did sitting at the bar. "They offer special courses for that back then? Chopping and Chopin. Get fit while learning sword work choreographed to a beautiful solo piano piece."

Anna wants to look away. Cough or scowl to hide her smile. Fuck him for being so clever. Who even know about Chopin now anyway? And the actual context of who he was, not just the name. But looking away from Deacon would mean seeing the rest of the church again.

So she has no choice but to let him see as the smile breaks across her face.

"Medieval Society," she says quickly, so the smile won't last long. "A club. For nerds."

He grins back at her. "I can't imagine anyone shoving you inside a locker."

She shrugs one shoulder. "Nate was. Sort of."

"I thought nerdship was more of an all or nothing thing. If there's a means of casually dabbling in it, please, do share," he says.

"Nate was ..." Anna pauses, trying to think of how to describe her late husband. "Perfect. Really fucked up."

“Perfect people usually are,” Deacon says, although he doesn’t press for more.

Anna almost tells him anyway. It’s been so long since she’s talked to anyone. Really talked to them. The other housewives in Sanctuary Hills thought she was weird and stupid and foreign. They made fun of the way she looked and how she talked. She stopped bothering to go to the games of bridge and book club meetings after a few months.

So she almost tells him about how Nate was one of the first test subjects for X-Cell. How he had an absent Senator father who had cared more about reelection than him during his childhood. The desperate attempts to reconnect brought on by old age and a sense of mortality had been too little too late. His mother’s drinking problem and “nervous” constitution. That Anna had still loved them like replacements for her own parents anyway.

How much the military had fucked Nate over and then thrown him away.

And how he’d come crawling back the very moment they needed a literal poster boy to sell war bonds and recruit more naive All-American good ole boys who truly thought they would be serving their country.

But she swallows all of that back down. She can overshare later, after she’s gotten her son back.

“Charming enough to have nerdy club without getting shoved in locker,” Anna says instead.

“Bet the club really loved you too.” Deacon nods at her sword. “With skills like that."

Anna snorts. “Made their costumes. Cooked ‘authentic' meals. Cleaned weapons."

“What, that's all? But you’re totally kickass!"

“Girls not allowed to fight."

Anna idly brushes the knuckles of her gauntlets over Dog’s head in the silence. The only sound is his tail sweeping across the dusty floor as it wags.

“What the fuck,” Deacon says flatly. “You just chopped a Super Mutant in half—you should have been the president, or queen … empress? Whatever. Of that club."

“Sparred with Nate sometimes,” she says. “I’d learn moves. Teach to him. He’d fight."

“That doesn’t seem fair."

Anna barks out a laugh. The sound is bitter and ugly. Of course it wasn’t fucking fair. “Fairness” had nothing to do with sexism or capitalism or any part of the world she grew up in at all.

Dog’s ears perk up and he looks toward the door before either of them can say anything else. Anna draws her sword and sidles up to the side of the doorway with silent steps. Lots of practice creeping along quietly over creaky wooden floors. Dog follows her, also crouched down low in stealth.

She glances back at the church. No sign of auras through the busted out windows, so no one trying to circle around to the back. Deacon’s bright smudge of blue stands out in the shadows back there anyway. He’ll intercept anyone trying to outflank them.

Then there’s footsteps. Anna waits as the person steps inside, followed by another. Both men. She stays pressed back against the wall, so silent and still that they don’t notice her. But she does recognize one of the auras.

Old Man Stockton. She still taps the end of her blade lightly between his shoulder blades. He flinches and freezes up. If she were anyone else, he'd be dead right now. His paranoia must not translate over to combat training.

“Careful,” she tells him.

Anna lowers her sword. Deacon would already be shooting if the other man wasn’t expected. He must be the “package.” Stockton turns very slowly, his aura quivering and drawn up tight until he sees her.

She’s more interested in the other man though. His aura doesn’t have any real color to it. Just a formless grey. Like a baby or an animal. Person enough to have an aura, but not quite enough of a person to have a color. He obviously has some basic instincts though, because he’s pressed up against a pew with his aura so shrunk with fear it’s nearly invisible.

“While I appreciate your concern for safety, I’d also prefer you put that thing away,” Stockton grumbles.

Anna looks at the other man again. He’s still scared. She couldn’t give less of a shit about some man’s sad sad sob story about how one time, he wasn’t treated like a person either. Even though he’s a man! And men are real people! Unlike you.

Just thinking about it is raising her blood pressure.

But he’s scared, and she never did like unnecessary cruelty. She sheathes her sword. Deacon steps out of the shadows. He actually clears his throat to let the two men know he’s there, so he won’t frighten them even more.

“Everything’s clear,” Stockton tells the other man, then turns back to them. “This is H2-22. H2, these are the people I told you about. They’ll help you."

Anna takes a harder look at the man. Strange aura. Serial number rather than a name. Is he a synth? She’d assumed they would all look like Valentine. This man could easily pass for human. But it makes sense that the “package” they’re here to pick up is a synth. It also really makes no difference to the mission.

“Nice to meet you, H2,” Deacon says. “My name is Deacon, and this is Anna."

H2’s aura unfolds a little as he relaxes. “Another person actually happy to meet me? This’ll take some getting used to."

“Remember what I told you, H2,” Stockton says. “No need for me to be here anymore. I’ll fire up the signal before I leave."

He walks to a nearby window and lights a lantern. H2 looks at Dog, whose tail starts thumping against Anna’s leg at the eye contact. New person. Anna doesn’t let him go greet the man just yet. Some people get scared of dogs, and she doesn’t want him getting hurt if H2 lashes out.

“And … there.” Stockton turns back to them again once the flame catches. “Keep H2 safe. Someone will be here shortly."

“Later,” Deacon calls out when Stockton leaves without any other goodbye.

H2 keeps glancing at Anna and then quickly dropping his gaze. Deacon mouths "hello" to her. She bites back a disgruntled noise. He already introduced her. There's no point in her saying hi. It's not like she's ever going to come off as friendly or social.

But fine.

"Hello," Anna says.

"Yes, ma'am!" H2 immediately blurts out in response to her voice.

Anna blinks. While that is what she likes to hear from men, it wasn't what she expected in response to hello. H2 flinches back and fixes his gaze firmly back on his shoes again.

"Hey, it's all right," Deacon says in a soft voice. "She's not going to hurt you. Anna's here to keep you safe."

H2 peeks up at Anna, then straight back down to the floor. "Yes'm. Sorry ma'am."

"You don't have to be afraid," Deacon tells him.

H2 nods but doesn't look back up.

"Do you feel like you ... recognize her?" Deacon asks slowly.

He looks over at Anna. She shrugs. She's never seen this man before. She doesn't exactly have a common face either. Big ugly broken nose. Chemical burn splash beneath her left eye, making her already pale skin white as death. And a healthy dose of freckles across the unscarred skin. Not like he could mistake her for someone else.

H2 dares to look up, just a second at Anna and then longer at Deacon. "Um, no? I ... I don't think so. I can't remember much before--I mean. You know. Um. She just--she's the one in charge, right?"

Security protocols. Valentine said they wiped out just about everything synths knew about the Institute. Presumably they'd be set to activate anytime the synths got too far away. Like a shock collar.

"Yep, she's the boss," Deacon confirms easily, without a problem identifying her as the leader. "But she's not mean about it or anything. She listens to me really well even though I probably talk too much."

“What, um …” H2 starts to ask a question, then stops himself.

“It’s all right, buddy,” Deacon tells him. “You can ask questions. Maybe we won’t be able to answer them, but you won’t get in trouble for asking."

The synth seems afraid to look at Anna. She focuses on Deacon instead, watching H2 out of the corner of her eye. She still remembers how terrifying it was to make eye contact when she first escaped the church. The cult.

“What model is that?” H2 mumbles, pointing at Dog.

“That’s a dog,” Deacon says.

“I know what the unit is. What’s its …” H2 hesitates over the word. “Model?"

“German Shepherd,” Anna answers.

H2 starts a little at her voice, then nods, his gaze fixed on his shoes. “Is it here to make sure I don’t run away?"

Goddammit. Anna doesn’t want to feel … _feelings_ for this man. She’s too tired and angry and bitter for that “empathy” bullshit. No man ever felt bad for her.

But she knows what it’s like. Running through the woods. Stumbling onto the highway. Hoping the dogs haven’t been released yet to hunt her down. She’d gotten lucky. A truck stopped for her, took her far, far away.

Sure, the old man driving had locked the doors and demanded _payment_ for the ride. But that was better than going back. Anything was better than going back.

She wonders if H2-22 is thinking the same thing right now.

_Anything is better than going back._

“No,” Anna says. “Is therapy animal."

H2 dares to look up at her. “I’m not familiar with that designation."

Anna tries to answer, but her throat closes up. Блядь. Not now. Not here. Not in front of other people, пожалуйста. But that’s how it always happens. Trying to talk to other people. But now with the church and the memories.

She can feel herself go nonverbal. Her throat feels like it’s trying to strangle her. Everyone is looking at her. She needs to answer. But the thought of explaining why she needs a therapy animal--that she can't get through the basic fucking necessities of life on her own--is too much. She can’t do it.

She can’t.

She _can’t._

“A therapy animal helps its owner take care of themself,” Deacon says. “When Anna feeds her dog, she also knows that’s time for her to eat too. He helps her sleep at night by keeping watch and letting her know when other people approach. He’s combat trained too, but our mission tonight is to keep you safe, so he won’t hurt you."

H2 looks to Anna for confirmation. She manages to give a strangled hum of agreement. Dog’s tail thwaps faster against her leg as the synth looks at him next. The dog looks up at her and whines, clearly wanting to go be petted by the new person.

“Is it all right if H2 pets him?” Deacon asks her.

Anna nods in silence. If they focus on the dog, maybe she can have a moment to get herself together. She signs at Dog to go, then closes her eyes. She just needs a moment.

“Oh! Is this—how do I, um?"

“He likes scritchy-scratches right behind his ear, like this."

Anna breathes in. One-two-three-four-five-six. Pause. Breathes out. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. And repeats it again.

“Oh, wow. The tail wagging function is a big improvement. Do all the dog units up here have that upgrade?"

“Sure do! Check out the face licking action."

“What—“ H2’s voice cuts off with a sharp inhale, then a giggle. “That feels funny. What purpose does that function serve?"

Anna gives one last slow exhale and opens her eyes. Deacon and H2 are sitting on the floor now. Dog’s tail is in hyperdrive as he tries to lick them both at once. Deacon’s sunglasses have slid down his nose, and she catches a flash of blue when he looks up to smile at her.

It’s OK. The world ended. There isn’t another person alive who knows where she came from or what she did. It’s all been blown away by the bombs. Purified by fire.

Anna finds comfort in this.

Comfort that's immediately shattered as Dog stops and looks back toward the door. Anna grips the hilt of her sword. Another agent is supposed to show up, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious. And the addition of yet another new person she'll have to interact with doesn't help her nerves.

"Easy there." The new man raises his hands a bit as he comes inside. "Don't, uh, stab me."

"Oн хорош," Deacon says. "He's one of ours. Agent High Rise."

"Deacon?" High Rise asks. "Damn, is that you?"

"Depends if you remember how much I still owe you for that bet," Deacon says. "If it's less than fifty caps, then sure. If it's over, I heard that asshole left the 'Wealth two months ago."

High Rise snorts. "Definitely Deacon. Stockton told me about you, H2, don't worry. And, uh ...?"

He trails off and looks expectantly at Anna. She clenches her jaw. Russian. Words are nearly impossible right now, but sometimes she can speak Russian even like this. It takes time to translate in her head from English though. Russian isn't her first language. Just her favorite to use. Her memories of being screamed at and threatened in Russian all come from a time in her life when she knew she could fight back. Her memories of English mostly include staring at the floor and being hit without protest.

"Я Aнна," she forces out.

"General Anna, of the Commonwealth Minutemen," Deacon steps in to explain. "We're doing some team up work with them at the moment."

"Your handle is Fixer, right?" High Rise asks her.

"Mhmm."

It's the best Anna can manage at the moment. But the pink of the other agent's aura stays steady. She doesn't think he's noticed anything off about her yet. Aside from being huge and covered in blood.

"I heard about you," he says. "Got a settlement running, cleared out some raiders, and helped Valentine out of a tight spot. Pretty impressive. Glad you joined the team."

"Mm."

He waits for more, but it's a miracle she even managed to get out her name. All of her verbal words have been used up. Please come back again tomorrow.

"Why don't we all step out back?" Deacon suggests. "I'm probably just being paranoid, but High Rise here isn't the only one who can spot a lantern, and word is that there are plenty of raiders lurking around. Sooo ..."

He's already gesturing for H2 to follow him, which the synth obeys automatically. Anna is willing to go along with any plan that involves getting out of this fucking church.

"What if there are raiders outside?" H2 asks.

"Then Anna will chop them in half," Deacon soothes. "She just finished slicing and dicing five Super Mutants all by herself, so I promise a couple of raiders won't be any trouble. I just like to keep moving to be extra safe."

He falls back as he speaks, and Anna steps forward. His eyes flash at her over the rims of his sunglasses again. Was that ... concern? Did he suggest they leave because he somehow knew she needed to get out of here? Anna didn't think she'd been too obvious about it. One of the benefits of being naturally laconic is when she goes nonverbal, no one usually notices.

But then the moment passes. Anna takes lead in front of H2. Deacon and Dog flank both of the synth's sides. High Rise brings up the rear. Circling the wagons. She hears High Rise talking quietly to H2-22 behind her.

"Hey, you. You OK?"

"A little rattled. But I’ve never been better. The other man … he said I shouldn’t talk too much."

"Next block, hang a left," Deacon whispers to her. "Как дела?"

Anna starts to think he knows a lot more Russian than what he let on in the beginning. He's only used short, simple sentences, but the pronunciation has been close and the grammar basically in place.

She grunts in reply. The streets look abandoned so far. No bright smudges of aura peeping out from alleys or rooftops.

"He’s right," High Rise tells H2. "You’ll need a real name, and a new face, but we’ll get to that."

"New face?"

"We'll have to file off your serial numbers, buddy. Make it hard for the Institute to find you. Most synths go in for a brand new set of memories too. For that extra protection and all."

File off their serial numbers. The Institute put fucking serial numbers on them. Jesus. Not even Anna can stay totally impartial after learning that.

"But that's all stuff you can worry about after we get you to the Safehouse," Deacon tells him.

"Are we almost--"

Anna abruptly stops and holds up a clenched fist for the others to do the same. Now there's a flicker of a bonfire and at least a few auras in the distance. Dog crouches down, his ears bent back as he sniffs the air. She glances back at the others. Deacon points at himself and High Rise, then at the ground. They'll stay here. Guard the package while she takes out the threats ahead. She nods and signals to Dog to follow. The two lope off down the street at a low running crouch.

There's not much Anna can do to make herself smaller. But she does know how to move silently and stick to the shadows. The voices of the raiders grow louder as she gets closer. They sound drunk and rowdy. Anna motions for Dog to go across the street and stay. Then she slips down the street.

It’s been about three years since her work as a mercenary. Three years of therapy. Being a housewife. Getting soft. But old habits die hard, and Anna easily picks off the raiders who have straggled too far from the fire.

Five, total. Yanked into the shadows. Gauntlet clamped over their mouth. Quick snap of their neck. Ripped out throat for one who struggled too much.

Not just dumb muscle. That had been the mantra Boris pounded into her. Strategy and stealth were essential.

The rest of the raiders are too close to the fire to get at without being noticed. Some are already starting to look around for their missing friends. Anna returns to where she left Dog. He drops into a play crouch. Now can I bite someone, he seems to ask. She gives him another firm signal to stay and goes into the building across the street.

The stairs in one corner have collapsed, but Anna is tall enough to jump, grab the lip of the second story floor, and pull herself up. She goes to the empty space where a window should be and checks outside. There's a small shadow across the street where Dog is waiting. Good boy.

She tosses a loose brick from the rubble down onto the street below. The muttered voices of antsy raiders cut off at the noise. They group up and make an attempt to move quietly down the street. They're drunk though and their auras immediately give them away, no matter how dark it is.

Anna waits until the group sent to investigate is right below her. Then she gives a sharp whistle. There’s a shout of "What the--“ that cuts off into barking as Dog finally gets in on the fight. She gives it five seconds, and jumps back down. The raiders' backs are to her as she lands. She uses her knife to stab one of them through the kidney before he can turn around. No point in breaking out her sword for this. The raider collapses with a scream of pain. Anna kicks him as an afterthought to shut him up.

Dog has one of the raiders by the arm holding his gun. He won't be able to shoot her or, more importantly, her dog. That leaves one more for her. She barely sidesteps to the right to avoid being shot. The bark of the gun echoes loud in the empty street. No more need for stealth. The raider on the left doesn't expect her to come right at him after that. He's probably used to people backing away and putting their hands up when he points a gun at them.

Anna grabs him and spins him around, prepared to rip out his throat too. A bullet whizzes past her ear. She looks over the raider's shoulder to see another one set up on a shabbily built tower with a sniper rifle. Must suck trying to aim when you're drunk.

She spares a glance to her left to make sure Dog has his end covered. Since he's currently biting off chunks of the raider's face, she thinks he's good.

Back to the sniper. Anna fucking hates snipers.

She grabs the raider currently struggling in her group by the back of his belt and bodily hefts him up in front of her. He's small enough and she's tall enough that her legs aren't covered, but he makes a good shield for her torso and head.

A loudly screaming shield, but no one's perfect.

Anna charges forward while still holding up the raider. The sniper can try to shoot through his friend if he wants, but she doesn't feel the impact of a bullet before she crashes into the tower. The whole thing collapses around her. She goes down on one knee, then shoves her way clear of the debris. The shield-raider and the sniper are both groaning on the ground. Two quick stabs of her knife take care of them.

There’s one more raider left. Makes an even ten. But he’s already passed out with the bottle still dangling from his hand. Anna considers him.

He looks young. Early twenties, maybe. She kicks him in the side. He groans and rolls over to his other side, but doesn’t wake up. He won’t be a problem later.

Anna decides there’s no point in killing him then. Maybe waking up to find his buddies murdered will convince him to change his profession.

She looks back again to make sure Dog is still OK next. He lifts his blood-stained muzzle and lopes over to her, tail already wagging. But she spots an unfamiliar aura on the other end of the street, back near the package. Not the pink of High Rise or Deacon's blue.

Stupid to think the bad guys would come in a nice round number in real life. 

Anna starts out at a run. It looks like Deacon is missing entirely--no sign of his aura--until his blue suddenly swoops out of an alley and drags the raider back with him.

She slows down. He has it taken care of.

Deacon steps out of the alleyway just as she gets back to the group. He fusses with adjusting his wig. She motions for him to scootch it a centimeter to the left. There. Centered. The yellow glow of the raider's aura is already fading away in the alleyway behind him.

"All right." Deacon claps his hands together like he's leading a preschool class on a field trip. "Let's keep moving. We're almost there."

"Why were they screaming like that?" H2 asks.

Anna's gauntlets are covered in new splatters of blood. It's going to take a lot of scrubbing to get clean again. Deacon doesn't answer the synth's nervous question.

"High Rise, you're still fresh, so why don't you take lead this time," he says instead. "Anna, you mind bringing up the back?"

"Mhmm."

She carefully skirts around H2 as she takes the rear. Normally she relishes in men being afraid of her. But frightening such an obviously traumatized person doesn't sit well with her.

"I think he caught me in the face," Deacon is saying. "How's it look, H?"

He turns around and walks backwards in front of the synth, turning his head at different angles.

"You think it'll scar?" he asks. "Hey, maybe I'll have to get a new face too. We can go in together, get a mani-pedi-facial special, like a spa day. You think it looks big enough for that?"

"Stop fussing about your looks," High Rise mutters back to him.

Anna catches the other agent's eye and sharply points forward. Eyes on the road. Meanwhile, thanks to Deacon, H2's eyes stay on his face and don't stray to the dead bodies of the raiders as they pass by. Once they get past the raider's camp, Deacon lets H2 reassure him that his face still looks fine.

“So, do you uh, actually have a gun on you somewhere?” High Rise asks her when they huddle together for a rest stop.

It’s mainly for H2’s benefit. They’ve moved at a steady pace. One that might be considered “fast” for a civilian. Even with Deacon running interference so he didn’t focus on the dead bodies, he still looks shook up. Dog is happy to snuggle up to him and demonstrate his “tail-wagging function” in exchange for being petted. The synth looks up at her at the question.

“Have two,” Anna replies.

Her chain armor drapes over the tighter vault suit, but it’s still obviously from a casual glance that there really isn’t any place for her to hide a gun.

“Where?” High Rise asks.

“One here.” Anna raises her right arm and flexes. “Other here."

She does the same with her left arm. Boom, pow. Guns. Deacon is the only one who laughs, and it takes him a second. H2 looks so obviously confused even she can recognize his perfect textbook facial expression.

Anna lowers her arms. This is why she doesn’t try to be nice to people.

“Very muscular arms are sometimes called guns,” Deacon tells him. “It’s slang. You’ll get the hang of that after a while. Anna’s arms are huge, so she has very big guns. Hell, I’d call those canons."

He shoots her an encouraging smile. Anna hopes it’s dark enough they can’t see her blush. Even worse than trying to be nice to people is when other people are nice to her. She’s not used to that. She doesn’t know how to react. Except blush. And stutter.

“All right. Well.” High Rise awkwardly clears his throat. “I think we’re close enough to the safe house that I can take it from here. Nice meeting you, general."

Anna just nods. Her face still feels hot, so she doesn’t trust her voice right now.

“C’mon, H2. Let’s get going."

The synth gives Dog one last pat and stands up. “Thank you, ma’am. For um, yeah."

Anna nods again. He follows the other agent down the road. Now it’s just her and Deacon. Plus her dog. Deacon digs through his pack for a moment. Amazingly, he pulls out an old cop hat and puts it on his head. With his black sunglasses, he almost looks the part.

“Ma’am,” he says with a grin. “I’m going to have to ask to see your open carry permit for those guns."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Блядь - fuck
> 
> пожалуйста - please
> 
> Oн хорош - He's good
> 
> Я Aнна - I am Anna
> 
> Как дела - How are you doing?
> 
> ...
> 
> Finally, BAMF!Anna with a sword and even some backstory too! if you want to know more about her or just pester Deacon, send some messages to my Anna Howard rp blog at annahoward.tumblr.com to have one of them reply to you :)
> 
> **next time:** all the Railroad agents adopt Dogmeat as their mascot and feed him so many treats he gets fat and spoiled. also, Anna realizes she might think of Deacon as a "friend" and her brain immediately responds by flipping the lights on and off and screaming "ABORT! ABORT!!"


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: Anna goes through a dissociative, nonverbal episode, so be aware of that

Two weeks and no one has anything on Kellog. Deacon kicks back in his chair, sets his feet on the desk, and stares up at the ceiling. The baseball he’s idly tossing up and catching thunks into his hand every few seconds. He’s worked hard to cultivate an image of aloof degeneracy, and he’s not going to let anyone see him sweat now.

He’s got reports of Anna coming in from everyone and their molerat. She’s the hottest gossip of the Commonwealth. Sure, that’s mostly his own fault. On his runs out to pick up info from tourists, he may have passed along a few rumors himself. Made sure Bunker Hill knew she’s the one who cleared out those Super Mutants lurking nearby.

He’s never been the Minutemen’s biggest fan, but maybe that’s because he saw them grow from a couple of hick farmers to smug historical wankers too busy jerking off with one hand and patting themselves on the back with the other to get their shit together.

The Quincy Massacre just proved that.

Dogmeat seems to sense his sour mood and lifts his head up from where he’d been napping. He licks Deacon’s fingers where his free hand dangles down.

“Aw, it’s OK, buddy.” He reaches over to scratch the dog behind his ears. “Anna’s going to be back today. Glory too."

Dog’s tail thumps twice against the floor in recognition of the names. Anna left him behind rather than risk him getting hurt on her mission with Glory. His back leg has healed up fine since the skirmish with the Super Mutants, but he doesn’t blame her for not wanting to take chances after that.

Meanwhile, every single agent in HQ has adopted Dogmeat as “their” puppy. He’s literally been rolling in treats and belly rubs for the past two days.

“Yeah, you like Glory, don’t you?” Deacon scratches beneath his chin next. “Uh huh. She’s the one who sneaks you treats even when you’ve already had one. Yep, she’s just a great big softie underneath all that … minigun."

Dogmeat yawns, sending a wave of doggy breath straight into Deacon’s face as a reward for petting him. Deacon flinches back, but the dog doesn’t seem to mind. He has very full schedule of napping that’s filled up his whole day.

“Whoo. Geez.” Deacon leans back up and resumes his blasé pose. “You’re lucky you’re cute, boy."

Dogmeat farts in response, and Deacon groans. He hates being stuck in HQ. But by the time he’d gotten back from his little intel-gathering exercise, Anna and Glory had already been sent on another mission. Dez probably thought Glory was the only one who could keep up with Anna, or maybe it was vice versa.

Deacon thinks it’ll be a miracle if the two make it back without killing each other.

And in the meantime, he’s going to be killed by paperwork. He eyes the stack of blank report sheets Dez expects him to fill out. Maybe he can fake his death again. That was fun.

He sighs and shakes his head. Tosses the baseball back up in the air. What had he been thinking about?

Right, the Minutemen. Smug wankers. Not a fan. But everything he’s heard about Preston Garvey indicates he’s a stand up guy. A real Commonwealth angel, the only Minuteman who stuck by his duty to the very end.

Anna could turn them into something good. Parallel to the Railroad almost. Dez won’t approve any missions helping out humans, and even though they’re not being hunted down by the Institute like escaped synths are, they sure as hell could stand a little help. The Minutemen could be like the human-helping version of--

Deacon abruptly puts his feet down and lets the front legs of his chair hit the floor again. Damn him and his idealism.

Focus on the now. Just get the stupid paperwork done.

“If this kills me, you won’t like, eat my body or anything, will you?” he asks Dogmeat.

Dog snores and rolls over onto his side to kick his hind legs. Deacon snorts.

“I guess while you’re chasing rabbits, I’ll just be chasing ghosts then."

Except this time he doesn’t have decades to waste cat and mouse with Kellog. Anna’s help is contingent on him delivering on his promise to help her track down Kellog in return.

He rubs his hand over his face and starts writing out summaries of what his tourists offered up. Shorthand, and soon the code starts to blur together in front of him. Most of the gossip is bullshit anyway. Trudy says she saw Anna going up to Sanctuary before she was even out of the Vault for Christ’s sake.

No one has any information about other cases of kidnapped babies. He has reports from four settlements of a man no one recognized showing up with a baby, but he can discount one of them as definitely not Kellog-and-Shaun because both the man and baby in question are black.

So that leaves him with three shots in the dark to go chase down. And those are his most substantial leads.

Shit.

“—fucking walk away from me!"

Glory’s screaming echoes through the Switchboard main room as Anna comes storming in ahead of her. Dogmeat’s on his feet in an instant, Maven actually jumps a desk to get out of Anna’s way, and Tinker Tom panics and drops at least five separate items.

“I told you to stay behind,” Glory yells at Anna’s back. “But you couldn’t fucking stay put and you blew the whole mission!"

Deacon’s out of his chair before Glory even finishes. Anna is standing perfectly still, her back to the other woman, not breathing again. Not breathing is not good. A fight between those two could result in actual death.

“Hey, hey,” he says, stepping between the two women.

Dogmeat is already at Anna’s side, pressed up against her legs and whining. Deacon hopes the two of them can act as a large enough nonthreatening buffer to keep Anna and Glory separated.

“Glory, how about you have a cigarette break?” Deacon says.

“She fucking ruined the mission!” Glory insists.

“Can you tell me what went wrong without shouting or punching something?” he asks.

Glory shifts on her feet, practically bouncing with pent up anger. Finally, she scoffs and folds her arms, avoiding eye contact with him.

“All right,” he says gently. “So, cigarette break first, and then I’ll listen to everything you have to say."

Glory huffs, then stomps over to his desk. She yanks the drawers open with unwarranted force and grabs his good pack of mostly preserved cigarettes he swiped out of Malone’s vault. His inner voice whines as she stalks off with the pack. He should be cutting back anyway though, and one pack of cigarettes is a small price to pay for Glory and Anna not killing each other.

“Anna?” Deacon turns to her next, keeping his voice pitched soft.

No one speaks in the silence. All the other agents are quiet, waiting to see what she’ll do.

She turns around. Her hands are unclenched and not near her weapons, and her face is smooth and impassive. Expressionless. Deacon notes how she doesn’t exhibit any signs of anger, but her eyes stare blankly ahead. She isn’t even acknowledging Dogmeat.

“Why don’t we go down to the gym room?” he suggests.

Anna grunts and walks in that direction without any other response. Dog looks back at him and whines, then trots after her. Other people scramble to give her space. Glory will fight pretty much anyone, but she’d only yelled at Anna. If even the gutsiest heavy doesn’t want to pick a physical fight with her, no one else wants to risk it either.

Deacon follows after her and wishes like hell Desdemona were here. Him and Hancock have a bit of a history, and they’ve always gotten along reasonably well on top of that. Dr. Amari … well, she puts up with his bullshit. Dez could have just sent him to check on Goodneighbor, but no.

He hates staying at HQ, and drama between agents is half the reason why. Paperwork is the other half. Carrington gets a full one hundred percent by himself.

There’s two other agents in the little room that's set up as something close to a gym when they walk in. Deacon whistles at them and gives a sharp jerk of his head toward the door. The two other agents leave.

Sometimes it’s nice being the most senior agent in the Railroad.

Anna faces him, arms held loosely at her sides. Her eyes still don’t reflect anything resembling an emotion. And a large portion of his programming is devoted to reading and analyzing human expressions. Dogmeat sits down between the two of them, like he’s guarding against Deacon touching her too.

So it’s back to three feet of personal space, minimum.

“You want me to hold the punching bag for you or just fuck off?” he asks.

It takes a long moment, like she had to process that question before it finally registered, and then something flickers in her eyes.

“I could use a smoke break myself,” Deacon continues. “Don’t mind keeping the bag steady for you though."

Anna looks away. He leans against the wall and lets his own eyes drift across the room while he waits. Casual. Not judging or pressing for answers. Just … casual.

“Оставаться,” she says in the end.

Deacon represses a wince. He doesn’t know that Russian word. It’s not уходить, go away. So he’s assuming she wants him to stay, but he doesn’t feel like that’s something he should just _assume_.

“Can you look at me?” he asks.

Her jaw clenches briefly before her face smooths over to empty eyes again. She does at least drag her gaze over to look at him—the chest, not his face. He raises his hands into her line of view.

He points to the ground in front of him, then to the door. Anna doesn’t react, so he tries sign-spelling the words instead, one letter at a time.

_Stay or go?_

Anna blinks and looks up at his actual face.

“My signing is about as good as my Russian,” he says slowly, signing as many words of that sentence as he knows and sign-spelling out the rest. “Which is, ehhhh."

He trails off and makes an apologetic shrugging gesture. Anna considers him for another long moment before she slowly raises her hands too.

_Stay,_ she signs.

*******

Anna breathes out slowly and gives Dog the most careful pat she can after she signs to Deacon. She doesn’t trust herself to be gentle, so she doesn’t get to pet her dog. Not until she’s calm enough to do it without any risk of hurting him.

She also doesn’t like this. Whatever “this” is. Deacon not yelling at her. She knows the lecture will come at some point. She’d rather just get it over with.

Not more of this “being nice” bullshit.

But it might be better if she works off some of her anger first. She hasn’t had to stand still and be yelled at by a man since … fifteen? Boris had been harsh with his training, but at least he always let her hit back if he hit first. She might be out of practice now. Could snap. Hitting Deacon could lead to breaking ties with the Railroad—and their resources.

The thought of it also made her stomach twist.

Anna drops her pack with a thud. She deliberately keeps her eyes down and away from Deacon as she gets out the tape to wrap her hands. Dog presses close to her side while she works, but she doesn’t look at him either.

Deacon is already holding the punching bag when she stands up. She waits, but he still doesn’t say anything. Her eyes narrow.

Fuck him for being nice to her. Making her have some sort of _feeling_ about it.

Anna uses that thought to fuel her more than her anger at Glory as she punches the bag. Yes, it was frustrating that the other woman had just charged in like she’d never seen a strategy before in her life. Even more annoying that she’d snidely told her to “stay behind” like Anna was nothing more than some dumb civilian she had to babysit.

But whatever. People piss her off every day. Scared and angry is just her default state right now.

Deacon is the dangerous one. Making her laugh. Doing her favors. Getting her jokes. Why the fuck had she even tried to make a joke? She knows she comes off as too serious for most people to recognize when she's joking.

She punches the bag hard enough to make his feet slide back an inch. Deacon just readjusts and braces himself more firmly against the back of the punching bag.

If he keeps this up, she knows she’ll start thinking of him as a friend. But Anna doesn’t have casual friends. She _attaches_ to people. Usually only one person at a time, but there had been some overlap between Kotku and Nate.

And once someone is her favorite person, that’s it. No take backs. No returns. She hated Nate after he cheated on her, but when she decided she wanted a child, she’d married him all over again.

Anna punches the bag harder.

Cleaned him up.

The bag starts to give way as she pushes Deacon backwards.

Put him through rehab.

Paid for the big house— _punch_ —in the nice neighborhood— _punch_ —that he wanted— _punch_ —with his stupid— _punch_ —fancy— _punch_ —car.

He was still _hers_ and Kellog had taken him away from her. Shaun too, the only good thing she’d ever made, her little baby boy. The last time she hadn’t woken up scared and angry had been when she could sleep curled around him and his little pillow fort she built, one pillow on either side and an extra two for the top and bottom, didn’t want to roll over on him and he was the squirmiest baby anyway—Nate swore he could crawl faster than most people could run, and the two of them used to sit in the living room with Shaun crawling back and forth between them to be lifted up in the air for kisses and—

“Did you know ‘swims' still looks the same when you turn it upside down?"

Anna takes in a shuddering breath. She doesn’t understand where she is. She thinks her body is sitting down? None of the shapes and colors she’s seeing make sense.

“Yeah, I showed it to Tom one time when he’d been up for fifty-two hours straight and he actually screamed when I turned the paper over because he thought I was doing magic."

Voice. There’s a voice but it isn’t touching her. She peeks over at the direction the voice is coming from. It’s a blue voice. Blue is a nice color. Nate was a little bit blue, but he was also a lot of orange.

Nate had been a person. So was this voice a person?

“Then we found him doing a handstand twenty minutes later. He was propped up against a wall, and we didn’t know how long he’d been doing it, but his face was totally red from all the blood rushing down to his head."

Blue-voice-person to her left. Not touching her. Maybe? Something is touching her on the right, but she doesn’t think it’s the blue voice. It’s a purple color like her, but it has lots of other little color splashes mixed in. It must have a lot of friends.

She can’t hear any more voice sounds. The other colors she’s seeing aren’t bright enough to be people. She thinks she might be in a room, but she can’t remember where the walls are supposed to be.

“I tried to make him get down, but he kept yelling that he needed to know if he was the same word upside down."

Anna slowly reaches out to touch the purple thing. It’s fluffy and presses closer. She likes how soft it is. Something in the back of her mind says it’s OK for the purple thing to touch her.

She reaches down and touches something solid next. Rough. Concrete maybe. So that’s a floor. She gets distracted looking at her hand for a moment. That’s a thing that she can move. She thinks about moving her fingers and the long things attached to the square of flesh wiggle.

Freaky.

“Finally Glory had to pick him up and carry him over to his bed, with him still yelling about how this could be the new test to detect synths the whole way."

She blinks and tries to refocus. The hand—no. _Her_ hand. Her hand moves over to touch the thing behind her. Also solid but a little rough. That’s a wall.

“‘We should just turn everyone upside down! If we don’t know, we could just like, flip them over! The synths won’t be the same word. Listen, they’ll be a different word because the Institute doesn’t know about this. They don’t know about our magic! They can’t take our magic!’"

She follows the wall until it hits another large block of dull color. That’s probably another wall. The room slowly starts to make sense to her. Now she wants to know where the exits are.

The purple thing has settled down to lay halfway in her lap. She thinks it’s a nice purple thing, but it hasn’t been making any voice-noises.

Can she ask the blue voice instead?

Anna tries, but she doesn’t think the sound she makes is a word. The blue voice stops its own talking anyway. Is it paying attention to her? Shit. She can’t speak. She can’t remember how. She can't--

Hands! She has hands.

She raises her hands and signs, _Door._

“The door is over there. It’s locked. You’re safe."

The blue voice has hands too. They move with its voice to sign the words it says. He says? She thinks the blue voice is a he. Which is strange. He voices are usually mean to her. This he isn’t yelling or touching her. Is it a good he?

She makes an acknowledgment sound. The blue voice speaks again.

“Hey, you back with me? Are you hearing me OK?"

“Mhmm."

Anna could always hear him, she just couldn’t understand. Now she plays back through what happened in her mind. She worked herself up into an episode again. The tape on her hands is ragged and torn through in some spots. But she doesn’t have any blood on her knuckles.

The two auras next to her are blending into the color of her own aura too. They wouldn’t do that if they were afraid of her. The auras would be drawn back, projecting their desire to get away.

So she must not have hurt either of them. The … dog? Anna looks down at the most colorful aura. Now she recognizes the shape of the thing beneath the color. That’s a dog. Her dog.

She wants to tell him he’s a good boy, but she can't find the words in her own voice. The blue he with the nice voice can speak though. She signs good boy to him and points at Dog.

“Yeah, Dog is a good boy. A little bit spoiled maybe, but that’s just because he’s so darn cute. Everyone loves him. We actually had to set up a schedule of who could give him a treat when because apparently, the first day you were gone, he got fed like, eight different times."

The blue in Dog’s aura matches the blue of the him sitting next to her. Dog must like the blue-him a lot for their auras to mix like that.

Anna thinks the blue-him has a name. He told her a funny story to calm her down, and she knows a blue-him who tells funny stories. With a nice voice. Hair that doesn’t fit right. Dark eyes? No. She looks at him and cocks her head. There’s something covering his eyes.

Sunglasses! Deacon. Railroad. Friend?

That brings back the full memory of what happened. This whole fucking episode happened because she thought she might have accidentally made a friend. Her brain promptly screamed ABORT! And everything shut down.

Anna lets her head thunk back against the wall.

Stupid.

"I hope you mean us for falling for those big brown puppy eyes," Deacon says. "Because if you're talking about yourself, I'm gonna have to correct you."

She'd have to open her eyes to roll them. Which is a shame. She'd love to roll her eyes at the upcoming pep talk about how she's not stupid, but that's too much effort right now.

"You just needed to sit down and breathe for a moment."

Oh god. Is he still talking about this.

"That doesn't even make the top one hundred of Railroad freakouts."

She manages to open her eyes and turn her head over to glare at him. Deacon holds his right hand up like a boy scout.

"Honest!" he proclaims. "Listen, when my panic attacks hit, it's going to be at least a three hour trip of covering up invisible, nonexistent cameras I think the Institute is monitoring us with. And don't even get me started on birds."

Anna finally finds a word again. She just wants this relatable, positive affirmation bullshit to be over with.

"Lecture," she croaks out.

Dogmeat sits up in her lap at the sound of her voice. His nails scrape and catch against the links of her chain armor over the vault suit, but he doesn't mind as he goes straight for licking her face. She cautiously raises a hand to pet him. When that goes well, she hugs him.

The tail-wagging function is indeed a big improvement.

“Do you want to lecture me about something or are you asking about receiving one?” Deacon asks when Dog settles back down again.

Dog’s tail wags idly as he lays in Anna’s lap, like they’re all down on the floor having one big cuddle session. She smooths her hand down his back as she tries to find more words to use. They’re starting to come back to her now.

“You lecture me,” she says slowly. “About … Glory. Mission."

She hates how broken and stupid her English sounds. Russian is better. It doesn’t use is or was if the sentence can be understood without it. Hardly any articles or prepositions. Just the barest bones. Easy, when she can only speak three words at a time.

But Deacon shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. Pairing the two of you together was a bad call, especially without clearly putting one of you in charge first."

Anna sighs and stares down at Dog. “Said bad thing. About synths."

“Well, that does need an apology."

She nods. What she said wasn’t something about synths not really being human or anything. But when Glory had demanded to know if she’d disregarded her order because she was a synth, Anna had snapped.

She’d grown up brainwashed into not believing she was a person too. Used for labor, then married off at fourteen to be used for breeding. Escaped into a world she knew nothing about.

But there hadn’t been any welcoming party waiting to take her into their family and give her a minigun to feel safe again.

Just starving in the boiler room of an apartment complex owned by a middle aged man with short teeth who “rented” that small slice of hell to them in exchange for sex from Kotku. Who had to pay extra for Anna, who was too ugly to be worth it.

But Glory wanted to think her life was hard. Getting food, shelter, and safety immediately provided to her. Combat training and a minigun. A whole _family._

Anna exhales slowly. So what? Maybe her life was harder than Glory's. Maybe it wasn't. Arguing about who's more oppressed in the middle of a post-apocalyptic wasteland sounds like some sort of bad discourse nightmare. Like hell she'll be the one to resurrect that bullshit.

“Отлично."

*******

“Here."

Deacon looks up, expecting Anna to give him a piece of paper, but she sets what looks like the world’s most suped up typewriter onto his desk with a heavy thunk. The center roll-y part in the back that turned the paper—or moved the keys? It did something important—sticks out extra wide.

“Finally, I can print my entire, unabridged edition of War and Peace,” he quips.

Anna’s lips twitch slightly in what he’s starting to identify as her version of a smile.

“Encryptor."

She pushes in on the back part and pops out a component of it before he can reply. It has a separate set of keys arranged in what appears to be a random pattern until he recognizes it as a letter shift. It’s the same QWERTY keyboard, but all the letters have been shifted over by four.

“Press main keyboard P, get R,” she says.

He nods. “Nice. Easier than working it out in your head. So this baby encrypts your message automatically?"

She pops out another slot, this time with the QWERTY pattern shifted up one. “R then makes C."

Deacon can see two more components now, and he’s guessing they each encrypt the message a step further. He leans back in his seat with a grin and gives her a go on gesture.

The next component she slides out shifts left two.

“C makes Z."

The last piece she shows him has the Cyrillic alphabet, and he gives a low whistle. The symbols are wooden instead of metal and a bit jagged in places, like she carved them out herself. This took some serious effort. And if the Franken-typer actually works after so many modifications, it’ll be damn near a work of genius.

“Z makes З,” she finishes.

“Doesn’t the Cyrillic alphabet have thirty-three letters instead of twenty-six?” he asks.

Anna grabs a chair so she can sit on the other side of his desk. Deacon leans in close to pay attention to the way she points to each of the Cyrillic letters that don’t have a counterpart in the Latin alphabet. He’s aware of her hair brushing against his wig—she normally keeps her chain mail hood pulled up but it’s down now, letting her shorn-off-with-a-knife haircut stick out—but he forces himself to ignore that and pay attention.

“Can use ы as sign to start message and ь to stop,” she tells him. “Или space fillers to confuse others. Или develop new code. Что вам нужно."

Deacon notices Anna slip back into Russian as she gets excited, using или instead of “or” but he doesn’t recognize that last bit.

"По английски пожалуйста,” he says.

He has stacks of salvaged dictionaries in different languages, not all of them translating back to English. He only has a German dictionary that translates into Chinese, and he can’t find a Chinese to English dictionary for the life of him. There’s not much time for him to teach himself much anyway, but he’s at least taught himself the basics of how to ask, “Do you speak English?” and “In English, please."

Anna blinks and complies with his request. “Yes. Said, anything you need."

“I thought что meant ‘what’?” Deacon asks.

She shrugs. “Literally, what you necessary."

He gives a short laugh, but Dogmeat comes over and flops down on the ground beside the desk with a groan before they can continue their conversation. He leans back in his chair to get a better look at the dog, and he swears Dogmeat actually looks fatter than he was this morning.

“You deserve this,” Anna tells him in a stern voice. “Begged for treats all afternoon like starving orphan."

Dogmeat whines in response and lets out a long, stinky fart.

“Ugh.” Deacon covers his nose. “How many snack cakes did you get?"

Dogmeat uses his paws to cover his face and lets out another pitiful whine.

“This is own doing,” Anna says.

He drops one paw down and sends her a pleading look. She stays firm for all of three seconds before getting out of her chair with a sigh and kneeling down beside him. Dogmeat’s tail thumps once against the ground as she carefully rubs over his belly until he lets out the longest fart yet.

"Oh god." Deacon lifts his ratty white t-shirt up to cover his face. "Incoming!"

The disgust spreads through the main room as the smell drifts outwards. Tinker Tom dives for cover under his desk like someone dropped a literal bomb--which might be a good strategy because maybe stink rises? like heat?--and Carrington actually gags before retreating back up the stairs into the second floor office.

So maybe there was a bright side.

"Fuck!" Sly Nick yells. "Doesn't someone have a desk fan?"

Anna looks up with a malicious gleam. "Desk fan. Do you hear? _Deacon_? He wants _desk fan_."

"You have to smell it too," Deacon points out.

Her grin looks like a flash of shark teeth. "Am willing to suffer."

He switches tactics. "General ... boss ... I would like to uh, formally apologize for my judgmental words about what you choose to loot in your infinite wisdom, and I rescind my unwanted comments immediately. Desk fans are amazing, and you are a genius among poor, ignorant potatoes for picking one up."

She cocks her head to the side, considering him. Judging him. Deacon holds his breath and prays for mercy.

"In pack," she finally says. "Records room."

"Thank you!" he gasps.

Meanwhile, Dogmeat lets out a big yawn, stretches, and promptly falls asleep, blissfully unaware of the horror he's inflicted.

*******

The world's most pimped out typewriter is still on his desk in the morning. He figures Anna just left it there because she doesn't have a desk of her own to put it on. In fact, now that he's staring at this monstrous typewriter instead of doing any real work, he's not sure where she's been sleeping either.

Deacon hears Anna a second before she speaks, and it's only the rustle of her chain mail that gives her away. Shit. He really can't afford to let his guard down like that, even in HQ.

"Do not like?"

She taps the typewriter sitting on the edge of his desk. Her face is blank like a mannequin's right now, but her body language is a bit easier to read. Unsure and tilted back away from him, ready to make a quick retreat.

"I haven't used it yet," he says. "Am I allowed to use your typewriter?"

She taps it again, more insistently. "Gift."

"You're giving this to me?"

She nods.

"You know you still have to apologize to Glory, right?" he asks before he makes any move to accept this "gift."

Anna's whole stance changes. Suddenly she looks sure and confident again.

"Good," she says.

He raises an eyebrow. "Did you just test me to see if I would take a bribe?"

She stares back at him with that blank, lizard eye look. He breaks out into a grin.

"Nice. I'll make an agent out of you yet." He holds up his hand. "High five."

Anna looks at it for a moment without her expression changing. She slowly lifts her hand up and moves it toward his in small increments, as if she expects him to whip his hand away and leave her hanging at any moment. He keeps his hand steady until hers finally touches his.

It's a lot bigger. Her fingers loom up over the tips of his and her palm is wider than his plus the width of his thumb.

Deacon doesn't have a thing for big hands. He doesn't. Ridiculous yaoi hands? Scoff. No. It's just ... maybe now he's thinking about how her hands might feel pushing down on the back of his neck and how big of a hand print bruise she could leave on his ass.

Fuck.

"OK, good first effort," he says, proud of how steady he keeps his voice. "We'll work on it. I have a master's degree in high fiving from a certified college, you know."

"Was it a clown school?" Tommy Whispers asks snidely as he walks by.

"Actually it was," Deacon says. "They also offered a minor in stuffing twenty people into one tiny car, which I aced by the way. Where'd you go to learn how to stuff twenty bees up your asshole?"

Anna laughs, loudly enough that a few other agents stop what they're doing and look over. Though that might be due to the ... unique quality ... of her laugh.

"He uses bullets now," she says.

A couple of the agents looking their way snicker quietly. Tommy's face flushes.

"I did _not_ get shot in the ass," he snaps. "It was the leg!"

Anna shrugs. "Sure."

Tommy visibly reigns himself in, attempting to sneer at her like an upper-stander looking down on an in-fielder. It’s not very effective considering he has to glare up at her to make eye contact.

“Whatever,” he says. “You two honestly deserve each other anyway."

With that, Tommy Whispers stalks off in a flurry of smugness at successfully adding yet another bee. Deacon and Anna make eye contact with each other, as they both seek reassurance that he really just used that lame ass insult.

“Anyway,” Anna says.

Deacon laughs. “I know, right? It’s kind of like arguing with a twelve-year-old. Their insults don’t really mean much, but you can never win the argument against so many brilliant retorts of ‘I know you are but what am I’?"

She snorts, that barely-there smirk back again. He looks at his stack of paperwork and wonders how long she’ll let him keep talking. Anna isn’t exactly the best conversational partner, but she hasn’t ever told him to shut up.

Yet.

“I should probably finish these up,” he says with a sigh.

Anna nods, but she doesn’t leave. He doesn’t mind. Being at HQ is a strange mixture of being swarmed by new recruits eager to hear his every bullshit story, filling in the older agents on all the latest intel they didn’t bother to get themselves because they knew he would do it, and then suddenly being avoided by everyone as they gossiped about him behind his back.

All right, not everyone. Damn, Tommy’s melodrama must be wearing off on him. He still has Glory and Tinker Tom—also known as the good Tom—and sometimes Dez. Sure, Glory’s usually gone on heavy-related missions and Tom isn’t all that coherent even on the best of days, but Deacon knows those two like him.

Until he suddenly doesn’t anymore and starts thinking about how they probably only put up with him because someone has to and they lost some sort of short straw lottery to—

Paperwork. Just finish the fucking paperwork.

“Use."

Deacon looks up and blinks at Anna, who’s still sitting there. She pushes the typed writer forward an inch.

“Can print,” she says. “Watch?"

The last word is strangely hesitant again, completely at odds with her usual demeanor as if she expects him to swipe the type writer off the desk and tell her to fuck off.

Not that he doesn’t think she wouldn’t beat the shit out of anyone who tried that with her, but she looks like that’s what she expects to happen next, and she’s just bracing herself for it.

“Yeah, I’d love to see,” he says. “Uh, whatever it is that it does."

Anna flips something open on her Pipboy and pulls out a cord that she plugs into the side of the monstrous motor on the bottom of the type writer. She taps at the Pipboy’s screen a few times, and then the keys of the type writer begin clacking down of their own accord.

“Prints,” she repeats.

Deacon gapes at the sight while the type writer pushes the page up and snaps back over to the left hand side to begin a new line.

“Holy shit."

“Much faster,” Anna says.

She gives his paperwork a pointed nod. Deacon’s head actually spins a little at the thought of being able to type out his reports and have them fucking printed instead of writing it all out by hand.

And automatically encrypted, with varying levels of encryption—not just letter shifts either, but an actual alphabet shift!

“Holy fuck,” he amends. “Can I …? You’re saying I can use this?"

“Да."

“Why would you—“ Deacon stops himself. “Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything—and I’m pretty sure it’s ancient Greeks who can’t be trusted bearing gifts, not Russians—but uh, why’d you go through all the trouble of making this?"

And making a goddamn printer out of a piece of junk type writer must have been a lot of trouble. She had to have stayed up at least part of the night, if not pulling an outright all-nighter.

He didn’t even think she liked him all that much.

“Faster.” Anna looks down at her Pipboy, avoiding eye contact. “You hate being here."

For the first time in probably a decade, Deacon doesn’t know what to say. She stays silent too, and the moment stretches on as she refuses to look at him. Which is probably just as good because it means she might not have caught him gaping at her like a fish for half a second before he controlled himself.

Nice? Gift?? Paying attention to him???

Deacon can practically feel his brain flicking the lights on and off and screaming in panicked confusion. The little secret agents that make up his personified vision of his own mind are all running around and smacking into each other, papers and manilla folders scattering everywhere, there’s a terminal currently on fire.

“We’re even,” Anna finally continues. “For yesterday. Here."

She still doesn’t look at him as she grabs the paper she printed off and shoves it over to him. It’s addressed to Glory. The apology she promised.

Everything suddenly slides into place and makes sense again. He helped her through whatever kind of episode she went through in the gym, and she doesn’t want to be indebted to him. The type writer isn’t a gift, it’s settling a score.

They’re even. It’s cool. Everything’s cool.

“Thank you,” Deacon says, uncharacteristically serious. “You want me to give this to her?"

Anna nods. He folds it up and then immediately breaks the intimate moment with a joke.

"Is this only for printing out reports?” he asks. "‘Cause I’d also like to personally give Carrington a copy of this new character I’m working on. He’s the only half-angel, half-demon in existence, which makes him damned by both races, but he’s fallen in love with a sweet, innocent human woman he can never be with because he’s too dangerous for her."

Anna’s eyes squeeze shut and she lets out one slow, long exhale out through her nose. Shit. He’s finally done it. Now she knows that’s he’s Annoying, and this is why none of the other agents want to hang out with him.

“Fuck,” she whispers, her carefully constructed facade cracking for a moment as a smirk slips out. "Has purple eyes too, да?"

So that was her trying not to laugh. Huh. Deacon made a mental note to keep an eye out for that reaction again. Maybe it was laughing she didn’t like, not him. He didn’t peg her as the type to be self-conscious, but some people didn’t like their own laughs.

“Oh yeah,” Deacon agrees. “You find that out on pages seven though fifteen when he stops in front of a mirror and describes every detail of his physical appearance."

Anna snorts at that. “Tragic backstory?"

“Well, his adoptive human parents died in a horrible car accident."

“Да, конечно."

“Killed his whole family actually. Their minivan plowed into a family reunion and just mowed down everyone. He was the only survivor."

“Mhmm."

“Then he grew up in an orphanage where he was made fun of a lot … until the Hunters found him."

Anna’s face hardens again. It’s a minuscule tightening, because there’s honestly not much difference between her “amused and listening” face and her “how did this piece of shit learn how to verbalize” face. But Deacon’s starting to spot the differences between the two. It’s all in her eyes.

“Who did they kill?” she asks. “Real mother? Half sister? Wife?"

“Gerbil,” he answers with faux seriousness. “Gerbil Gerry was his only friend, and his death was very tragic. Please respect that."

Anna tilts her head a centimeter or so to the right. Wary curiosity, not bracing herself to hear about another dead woman.

“I don’t kill off the women in my stories,” Deacon says, hoping his voice doesn’t come off as too serious.

Too sincere.

Too sad.

Fuck, it’s been literal decades by now, and he’s not actually even talking about her.

“Dead wives are just _so_ last century."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you listen closely, you can hear me laughing hysterically at the ending until it slowly morphs into sobbing. but if you're this far into the fic, then you've already joined me in Deacon Hell™, so welcome!
> 
> * Оставаться - Stay.
> 
> * Отлично - All right.
> 
> * Или - or
> 
> * Что вам нужно - Whatever you need.
> 
> * По английски пожалуйста - (Say that) In English, please.
> 
> * Да, конечно - Yeah, sure.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: Deacon and Glory both face some transphobic comments in here, but no slurs are used (except the b-word, but I'm not sure if that counts??) and both times the offending person is immediately shut down and is not supported at all in the narrative.

“Why the sword?"

Glory drops into the other side of the booth as bluntly as she drops her question. Anna doesn’t look up from cleaning the blade of said weapon. She comes up to the old donut shop to be alone. But maybe Glory read her apology letter, and this is her attempt at accepting it. Anna isn’t good enough at apologies to know how this is supposed to go. She thinks Glory doesn’t either.

So she answers.

“Short range."

“Disadvantage."

Anna looks up at Glory’s scoffed dismissal. The other woman leans back in the booth. Arms draped across the back. Chest left wide and open. Her legs are probably sprawled out beneath the table. Even Anna can read that body language as _come try to fuck with me._

“Minigun can at least kill people across the damn street,” Glory says.

Anna shrugs. “After two hundred bullets, конечно."

The synth’s red aura flickers irritably. Glory has color in hers. Like she’s always on fire. Not that listless grey fog around H2-22.

“People straighten the fuck up when they’re looking down the barrel of a minigun."

Anna shakes her head. “Sword is scarier."

Glory crossed her arms. “How?"

“Only crazy fucker brings knife to gunfight.” Anna grins, slow and feral. “Only scariest fucker wins."

The other woman nods slowly. “All right. I’ll give you that. But what’re you gonna do against someone with a long range weapon? And don’t give me that same bullshit story Deacon’s telling about how you punched out a sniper tower."

Anna barks out a laugh. That’s what he’s been telling people? Then she reconsiders. If he’d seen that happened, he must have gotten a lot closer to the action than she thought. Without her noticing him.

“Did not punch. Tackled."

“You _tackled_ a sniper tower?"

“Picked up raider.” Anna holds her hands above her head to demonstrate. “Used as shield. Charged sniper tower.” She lowers her hands and shrugs again. “Was sloppily built."

“So you used a raider as a battering ram to fuck up his buddy’s sniper tower.” Glory grins back at her, just as sharp. “Nice."

Anna nods and returns to cleaning her blade.

“But still. Disadvantage. A minigun could’a fucked that tower up just as well."

“Have not heard full story of killing deathclaw in Concord?” Anna asks, looking back up.

Glory shakes her head.

“Had minigun,” she says. “Killed deathclaw. Then turned it on settlers."

Glory’s aura flinches back in disgust even though her body stays perfectly still.

“No deaths,” Anna continues. “Stopped in time. But maybe won’t next time.” She taps on the blade of her sword. “Short range. Can only kill what’s in front of me."

Glory is silent for several long moments. Anna uses that time to finish cleaning her sword and move onto her knife. It doesn’t take as long. The gauntlets are trickier. They have flakes of dried blood and pieces of gore stuck beneath the metal claws.

“Yeah, all right,” Glory finally mutters, then changes the subject. “Your dog is spoiling Tom."

“Tinker?"

“Yeah. We don’t let Tommy Whimpers near him."

Anna snorts at the nickname. She’ll have to use that sometime.

“They’re both asleep right now,” Glory says. “Cuddling. Tom seems to think that dog is his own personal teddy bear."

Anna glances up. “Jealous?"

“Fuck off."

Anna isn’t offended. She goes back to scraping out the gore without comment.

“I’m just saying, there should be a schedule,” Glory finally says. “Like with the treats. These two people get to give him a treat today, and these other two people get to play with him."

Anna looks back up.

“Or whatever.” Glory looks to the side like she couldn’t care less. “It’s no big deal."

“Will think about—"

“Hey, there you gals are!"

Glory’s aura jumps up, then settles back down when she recognizes Sly Nick. Anna doesn’t realize how hard she’s gripping the gauntlet until one of the claw tips starts to awkwardly bite into her palm. The other woman isn’t so bad. Kind of an asshole, but Anna recognizes that she is too. Can’t blame Glory for being pissed off and bossy when she’s the same way.

But she came up here to be alone.

“Desdemona needs you for something, Glory,” Sly Nick says, leaning back against the counter.

The synths sighs and stands up. She shoots Anna a nod before making her way back to the stairs down to the Switchboard.

“Anytime you ladies need a third point to your triangle, I’ve got some real man meat you can borrow,” Nick calls after her.

Glory turns around and fixes him with a hard glare. “You want to compare sizes? I’m happy to show you mine if you show me yours. Maybe we should get a few more witnesses up here to verify the results."

Normally Anna doesn’t like size-based penis jokes. The smaller they are, the better, in her opinion. And maybe if men weren’t so busy whining about the size of their penis, they might be able to actually make themselves useful.

But she makes an exception for this one and grins. If Sly Nick wants to stake his manhood on the size of his “manhood,” then it’s funny to watch his ego get smacked down by a woman who apparently has a bigger dick than him.

“I think that thing Dez wanted was pretty urgent,” Nick mutters. “Like, right now."

“That _thing_ she wants is called an orgasm, Nick."

With that last retort, Glory heads down the stairs. Sly Nick’s aura flares up with anger before it suddenly smooths out. He turns and grins at Anna. She doesn’t believe his attempt at good cheer for a second.

“Ah, well,” Nick says with a sigh. “Life’s hard when you’re not the special favorite."

Anna doesn’t comment.

“Desdemona seems to be happy with her though, so you don’t have to worry about her looking at you,” he continues, then he laughs. “Though I guess you’d be more worried about Glory."

Women have never yelled at her in the streets. Followed her through parking lots. Threatened to rape her to teach her “how to be a real woman.” Shoved their hands down her pants to check that she really does have a vagina and really can use that restroom.

And if anything, women with dicks shared those same fears as her.

So no, she’s not concerned about Desdemona or Glory.

Explaining that to Sly Nick would probably be a waste of breath though. Plus a lot of talking that she isn’t up for. She stares silently at him instead. He starts to fidget after a moment. Good. Let him hear how stupid he just sounded.

"So ..." he trails off and looks at her expectantly.

Anna holds her same flat stare. Usually it makes people go away. She's been told no one could ever get an erection with her looking at them, and she considers that the highest compliment she's ever been paid.

"That fifty cap bet I told you about." Sly Nick flashes her another smile, but his aura stays huddled back well away from her. "It's up to one hundred now, if maybe that'll interest you."

"No."

Nothing about extending this interaction for any reason interests Anna. She gets up and heads for the stairs too. Sly Nick calls after her, but she doesn’t bother listening.

Glory is waiting in the stairwell. Anna stops in surprise. The two stand very still while they listen to Nick mutter to himself, then stomps out the above ground exit into the ‘waste for whatever mission he should be working on. Both women relax when it’s clear that he’s gone.

“Just wanted to make sure he didn’t bother you,” Glory tells her.

Anna nods slowly. “Girls watch out for each other."

Glory grins at her, a little less sharp and raw this time. “Damn straight."

“Have question,” Anna says as they walk down the stairs together.

Glory’s aura draws in on itself. “Yeah?"

“Hair. Dye?"

“Oh.” She relaxes and absently runs her hand through the mohawk. “Nah. Why? You like?"

Anna looks straight ahead so she doesn’t blush. Glory isn’t really her type. Too similar to herself. But the contrast of the other woman’s snow white hair popping out against her burnt umber skin is beautiful. Her aura crackles around both, sometimes so thick around her head it seems to color her hair red. Other times it smolders into her skin, giving the deep brown an almost copper tinge.

Not that Anna’s been looking.

Well.

Maybe a little.

“Yes."

“Just sort of happened,” Glory says. “Shock of escaping, I guess. Regular synths have kill chips, but coursers have ones that paralyze us. We’re too valuable to waste. Go rogue, and it damn near electrocutes you. Was supposed to keep me down ’til another courser came to retrieve me."

“Sorry,” Anna says.

“For what?” Glory asks sharply.

“Bringing up bad memory."

“Oh,” she repeats, relaxing again.

Anna understands being defensive like that. She slows to a stop and the two women stand in the empty hallway together.

“Fuck off with that apology, it’s fine,” Glory says. “I didn’t let it keep me down. Arrogant bastards were so sure it would that they dicked around and gave me enough time to crawl two miles out of range. Dez found me."

She stops abruptly after that. Maybe a memory she isn’t so quick to share.

“I survived, and I’m damn proud of it,” she continues. “We’re survivors, and we don’t have to apologize to anyone, yeah?"

Anna considers her for a moment. Does Glory only mean that in this particular situation, or is it her way of waving off the apology letter she wrote her? She’d explained a little bit of how bad it was for women pre-war in it. A general outline. Growing up in a church that was pretty much a cult. How brainwashed she’d been. Escaping from that into a world she’d always been told was terrible and filled with evil people.

She’s starting to see the similarities between her past and what’s happening to synths. It’s still hard for her to accept though. Every time she tries, something inside of her screams that _she had it worse, no one ever helped her, it’s not fair!_

But that’s not entirely true. Just selfish.

“Yeah,” Anna finally says.

*******

“What the hell are these?” Desdemona demands the moment Deacon steps into her office.

She holds up his finished reports like they’re color photographs of him naked in bed with a molerat dressed like Elvis, smoking a post-coital cigarette. She throws the damn dirty evidence down on the table between them.

“Papers,” Deacon answers. “A common type of material used to inscribe writing on, as opposed to papyrus or clay tablets."

“If you weren’t such an insufferable smartass, I’d say you’ve been replaced, actually getting these in on time” Dez grumbles.

“You know, there’s an old pre-war song about being Irreplaceable." He takes a deep breath. "It goes like—"

“Don’t!” Dez jabs a finger at him. “Don’t."

Deacon sighs. “Hollywood is dead."

“But these are _typed_ ,” Desdemona says as if he hadn’t spoke. “You know we don’t have the resources to waste fixing up printers when reports can just as easily be handwritten."

“Sorry, boss,” Deacon replies without an ounce of sincerity. “I just figured my time would be better spent out in the field than wasting time in here. You know sticking around for too long makes me antsy."

He doesn’t mention Anna or her gift. He’s still a little shook up at how thoughtful that was, if he’s honest with himself.

_Ha!_ If he ever did that, then he’d know he’s been replaced.

“Tinker Tom has far higher priorities than making you a printer,” Desdemona continues lecturing. “And you shouldn’t use that dog as a bribe. He’s eating half our food anyway."

Deacon hasn’t done any such thing, but the quickest way out of this was to just keep nodding and making apology noises until she runs out of steam. Dez stops and crosses her arms, glaring him down like she knows exactly what he was just thinking.

"I'll get him some wonderglue to make up for it," he says.

Dez doesn't look impressed by the offer.

"All right, a lot of wonderglue," he amends. " _Aaand_ , some duct tape."

"Take a partner," Desdemona demands instead.

"I'll take a seat," Deacon immediately counteroffers. "Take a number, take a beating, hell, Dez, just for you, I'll even take a break. No working this time, promise."

"If Kellog's back, the Institute is planning something new," Dez says. "They've already done something new, and we've got jackshit on why they'd take a baby from a Vault."

"Well, I have some leads on that I can--"

"Take. A. Partner." Desdemona orders.

"I'll take it under consideration."

She lets out an explosive rush of air and starts her worry-pacing. "So help me God, Deacon."

"The buddy system's never applied to me before, and I don't see why it should start now," he says.

“All of the Institute’s agents seem to have pulled out of Diamond City,” she mumbles half to herself as she paces. “And there haven’t been any sightings of coursers lately. They always send at least a two-pairing of coursers to hunt down escaped synths, but H2-22 hasn’t had anyone on him yet."

“So maybe we’re finally winning."

Desdemona looks up and gives him a withering glare. Deacon sighs again after only a few seconds. Even he isn’t a good enough faker to keep up that optimistic facade. Something big is coming. Or at least different now. They’re missing something, lagging behind on a crucial piece of information that they missed. They don’t even know what they don’t know.

He’s honestly surprised she hasn’t called the majority of active agents and heavies back to HQ to hunker down until they figure this out. That would tip the Institute off to them knowing that something is different though. Might be best to keep on carrying on, try to out bluff them.

“Please, Deacon,” she says. “If you’re going to start chasing Kellog again, at least take a damn partner."

“I’ve always been—"

“Or sit down here and write out everything you know."

Deacon blinks behind his sunglasses at the ultimatum. Desdemona doesn’t back down, just points at the table between them.

“All your tourists, contacts, secret little projects,” she demands. “Everything."

“Dez, you know keeping our intel compartmentalized is—"

“Is useless if the only person who knows it dies,” she finishes for him. “So either take a _goddamn partner_ to watch your back, or make a copy. On paper, in code, fuck, write it in Swahili if you want to, just make a back up so this place doesn’t fall about around me if you kick it."

He silently thinks she’s overestimating his importance and underestimating her own competence. He brings a lot to the table for the Railroad—the only reason she puts up with his shit like this—but he’s specifically designed them to work without him. The countersign, the dead drops, the tourists, all of that is incorporated into the Railroad already. His people know where to go if he doesn’t contact them after a set amount of time. He feeds most of the intel he collects into PAM, and Vault 111 was his biggest secret project.

The Railroad’s survived plenty worse than losing him.

“I’ll think about it,” Deacon says.

Desdemona leans back against the switchboard behind her and suddenly looks so tired that he has a suppress a physical wince of empathy. She’s put up with so much for him, and he suspects Carrington might be giving her a lot of shit for it behind his back.

“I’ll stay here and think about it,” he promises.

It’s not a commitment to an answer either way, but it’ll at least ease her worry that he’s going to disappear and get himself killed the moment she turns her back. And in the meantime, it gives him some breathing room to figure a way out of this.

“I sent Nick to get Glory,” she says. “I’ll talk to her, see how she feels about partnering up with you."

Deacon doesn’t comment, but she must still hear his skepticism anyway.

“You two have worked together before, and you need a heavy with you in case you actually find Kellog,” Dez argues.

“All right, good idea,” he says, backing away toward the door. “I’ll take that into consideration too."

Desdemona pinches the bridge of her nose for one long moment, then finally waves her hand. “Fine. Go."

Deacon is already out the door.

*******

“It’s not like we’re asking to know his childhood story or anything important. Just this one thing."

Deacon automatically slows down. He’d checked and double-checked the escape tunnel since his paranoia had been flaring up again after that lovely little conversation with Desdemona, and now a group of agents has huddled up inside the main room in his absence. He stops just around the corner, taking out a pack of cigarettes and fiddling with it like he’s contemplating taking a smoke break in the hallway.

Eavesdropping is just another bad habit of his at this point.

“Yeah, c’mon. We’ve had this bet going for almost a year."

They must be gathered around Maven’s desk. It’s closest to the hallway, on their right, his left. He idly wanders which new recruit they’ve got cornered. Drummer Boy, probably. He’ll step in if this fun game of peer pressure gets too close to hazing.

“No."

Wait, shit. That’s Anna’s voice. What could they want from her?

“Listen, you’re the only one we know for certain has seen him out in the field."

That would be Bullseye. Deacon chooses a cigarette and lifts it to his mouth without lighting it as he waits to see how this will play out.

“You told Sly Nick he was posing as a Diamond City Guard, and none of our agents down there have seen a guard wearing sunglasses. I checked."

And there’s Maven.

“Guys, I’m telling you, I saw his eyes."

Oh, so they did get Drummer Boy in on this. Or rather, the kid’s probably trying to prove he’s tough enough to hang with the veteran agents by helping them harass Anna.

“You did not,” Maven says. "That was an actual tato farmer. He lives on that settlement permanently. It wasn’t Deacon."

“No, listen, Deacon posed as that guy for a little—"

“That’s the Deacon from the alternate timeline where he really is a tato farmer, and he had to be brought to this timeline so that continuity—"

Bullseye cuts off Tinker Tom’s input. “Shut up, Tom. No one wants to hear your stupid theories."

Deacon sucks on the end of the cigarette irritably. Maybe he _should_ get Tom some wonder glue. Bullseye’s getting coal in his stocking though, and a spot on the next intel-gathering trip down to the Slog. Wading through some swampy marshes, getting real intimate with blood bugs might teach him some character.

Also, he knows the farmer Drummer Boy is talking about, and he _has_ stolen his identity a time or seven. Not while Drummer Boy was down there, but the kid is at least half right.

“Just tell us what his eye color is so we can get this over with,” Songbird’s bored voice pipes up.

Ah, so they’re still after that. He supposes it really isn’t that big of a deal. Wearing the sunglasses when he’s not in character is just second nature to him now. Method acting on the scale of what he does gets tiring after a couple of decades. It’s nice to put the sunglasses on and not have to worry about what his eyes might be giving away. Relax a little bit.

He could tell them the color himself if he’d known that’s all they wanted, but they’d only ever asked him to take _off_ the sunglasses and that wasn’t happening.

“No,” Anna replies. “Go away."

“I’m not joking about the hundred caps.” There’s a clinking noise, presumably as Bullseye sets a bag of caps down on the desk. “Right here."

“It’s just a dumb curiosity thing,” Maven says. “But it’s gone on long enough now that we’ve all had arguments about it, and honestly, it’s starting to get kind of petty. So if you could help us settle this, we promise we’ll stop bugging you."

“Huh? Uh, yeah. We’d really appreciate it or whatever,” Songbird says, probably at Maven’s prompting.

There’s a pause while Anna considers. Deacon’s already running through his mind how he’ll tell Anna it’s no big deal after she confesses she told them, or even how he might bring it up to her later if she never does confess—but it still hurts when she answers.

“Caps now."

“Yes!"

“You guys are gonna see. They’re grey, like I told you."

“Thanks. At least now they’ll finally shut up."

“All right, here,” Bullseye says. “Now spill."

“They …” Anna sighs, then lowers her voice to a whisper. “They’re really pretty actually."

“Yeah?"

“A nice shade of …"

So she sold him out for one hundred caps. Honestly, that’s not so bad. Especially since it’s just his stupid eye color. He’s had people betray him with worse for a hell of a lot less. He’ll have a talk with her about it after he puts her through the recall code trick and--

“Fuck you,” Anna finishes.

There’s silence, and then the other agents start shouting. Deacon can barely believe it himself.

“Нет,” Anna’s voice rises above the rest. “Am keeping."

“What?” Maven yells.

“Hell no,” Bullseye snaps.

“Do not want me to keep caps?” Anna asks.

“No, I don’t want you to keep our fucking caps!"

“Funny,” she says. “Because Deacon does not want you to know eye color. But you think, is not big deal. You don’t care about want or not want." She stops and scoffs. "Like six year olds."

"That's not the same--"

"Go sit in corner. Think about actions."

"You can't just--"

"Shoo."

There's a growling noise that indicates Dogmeat has joined the party, and Deacon takes that as his cue to break this up before things turn physical. He steps around the corner, knocking on the wall to announce his presence. The agents crowded around Anna snap their heads up to look at him. Maven and Drummer Boy at least have the decency to look embarrassed at being caught. Anna's face stays as devoid of emotion as ever, but he notices the way her hand automatically reaches for the hilt of her sword at his knock, although she relaxes when she sees it's him. Dogmeat even looks over and wags his tail.

"Speak of the devil, kiddos," Deacon says cheerfully. "Got in a little over your head with the hazing? Don't worry, it happens to the best of us."

Bullseye starts to speak. "She--"

"Ah!" He points a finger at the other agent and cuts him off. "Canceled, blocked, and reported. You have lost your speaking privileges. Now. You teeny-boppers heard the general. Time out for the rest of the evening. Hands in your laps, look straight ahead, no touching each other. Go on."

Maven slinks off, and Songbird follows after her girlfriend with a shrug. Bullseye makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat and storms off, leaving just Drummer Boy, who starts on his own walk of shame, then hesitates and turns back.

"Um, sorry," he tells Deacon, then gulps and turns to Anna. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

"How much did you put in bet?" she asks him.

Drummer Boy's face clearly shows his internal struggle as he eyes up the bag of caps. Deacon makes a mental note to help him work on his poker face later.

"Umm, I uh ..." Drummer Boy sighs as honesty wins out. "I didn't. I'm new here and just uh, got involved in this whole thing today."

Anna shoots Deacon a look. He shrugs. The caps are hers as far as he's concerned. She turns back to Drummer Boy and tosses him the whole bag. The poor kid fumbles and nearly drops it in his shock.

"What?" Bullseye yells from across the room. "She can't give the caps to him! This is bullshit!"

"There's nothing you can do about it," Tommy Whispers says from across the room, then looks over at them with a smug expression. "Women get bitchy like this when their cycles sync up."

So they're back to this again. The second reason he didn't have a partner. Even with how short his stays at HQ were, there wasn't much privacy for changing or pissing, and eventually a rumor caught on that he didn't have a penis. Deacon let the other agents believe he's trans, because it gives him a good excuse to always keep his boxer briefs on and not allow anyone to touch him below the belt.

Plus, the couple of times that's happened anyway, it's easier to just say he has a vagina to explain the lack of a bulge down there than to go into the whole "I'm a defective Gen 2.5 synth with no genitals!" conversation.

"Actually," Deacon tells Drummer Boy. "You got the caps because your guess was the closest. The truth is, my eyes are a pale grey because I'm blind. I navigate by--"

"The only thing you are is a liar," Tommy interrupts. "You can put on pants and pretend to be a man all you want, but you're just a lying bitch the same as the rest of them."

The room goes silent. Deacon can feel his heartbeat in his toes. It's too quiet. He hates the quiet and everyone looking at him and his strange, incomplete body. He can changes his face a thousand times, but the one surgery he really wants is never going to happen.

"I'm sorry," Anna says.

The room's attention snaps over to her.

"Your problem is with me, not him," she says. "And you ... are right. Have been bitch."

"You don't have to--" Deacon starts to mumble quietly to her, but she shakes her head.

"I should," she insists. "I apologize for the way I've treated you, Tommy. Um. Did you know swims is same word upside as right side up?"

Deacon feels his throat start to close up. He tries to stay positive--Anna is shifting the focus off of him and taking the brunt of the blame, but it still turns the inside of his chest into a heavy, hollow weight that she's using his trick to make amends with this asshole.

Tommy scoffs. "Yeah, obviously."

"No, no, is magic," Anna says.

She stands up and signs out a command for Dogmeat to stay, then slowly moves over to his desk. Tommy scoots back in his chair and watches her suspiciously until she grabs a piece of paper and actually begins writing on it.

"All right, listen," he says. "I'll go ahead and accept your apology, since--hey, that doesn't spell--"

Anna finishes writing and grabs him by the throat, picking him up and slamming his back down on his own desk in a move straight out of an old wrestling holo-vid. Tommy struggles to kick her off, but she traps his legs with the bulk of her body and her hand squeezes around his throat until he's gasping for breath. It only takes one of her hands to keep him immobile, and her free hand casually picks up a stapler.

TH-CHUNK. TH-CHUNK.

Two quick slaps of the stapler pin the paper she wrote on to his chest. Tommy howls, bucking against her grip harder. Maven runs up the stairs to go get Desdemona, but no one dares to directly interfere.

"You will learn lesson for minding own goddamn business about other's genitals," Anna growls out in the stunned silence, her hand choking Tommy making it impossible to reply. "Or next time, will give that floppy piss weasel you're so proud of a catheter with power drill."

"What's going on?" Desdemona demands, appearing at the top of the stairs.

Deacon grabs their packs and jogs over to Anna, tossing hers on the desk next to Tommy. Dogmeat runs after him, barking happily in the excitement of what he probably thinks is a fun new game.

"We're just leaving to go check those leads," he calls up to her. "I'm taking Anna as my partner, great idea about bringing a heavy!"

He doesn't stop backing away toward the exit as he talks, and Anna releases Tommy to grab her pack and follow him. He gets a quick glimpse of what she'd written on the paper stapled to his chest.

ASSHOLE

"We'll be back by Monday, bye!"

"Deacon, get back--"

But the two of them are already running down the hall for the tunnel escape with Dogmeat hot on their heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if any of you want a fallout fic with a trans agender sole survivor who does NOT face any transphobia at all, you can check out my fics with Scout x Hancock under the series OTP: Coat, Coat--Murder. a lot of people have commented on that series saying how much they like that there isn't any transphobia in it, and it is nice to have fics that are safe. but I also personally like narratives where transphobes get their asses handed to them in spectacular fashion and everyone on the bus stands up and applauds.
> 
> so while there will occasionally be transphobic people in this fic, I promise they will always immediately be shown to be puffy, dilapidated assholes
> 
> конечно - sure.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> did you know Hancock applauds and approves if you kill Finn first? Anna does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> general warning for violence that occurs in the beginning of the chapter, nothing too graphic. then at the end there's implied / referenced drug use, and Deacon self-harms a little bit.

Anna hangs back as they step through the gates to Goodneighbor. This section of Boston had been mob territory once. The Italians. She’d settled the deal with Malone, but if he had men up here, they might not have heard about that.

Deacon strolls right in however. He heads to the burning trashcan in the middle of the little courtyard to warm his hands beside the other drifters. Pretending to be separate might make his intel-gathering easier. Not many people found themselves in talkative modes beneath her stare. Dog trots after him to sniff at the new people though, and now he’ll either have to be Deacon’s dog or she’ll have to go over there to get him back.

Anna decides to let Dog have his fun, at least for the night. She heads into the general store without looking at either of them. The inside of the store is small and filled with an apparently random assortment of scavenged junk. She takes a sniff at the food section. Maybe half of that is edible. Only a quarter is food people might actually want to put in their mouths.

“No returns, no refunds, no death threats,” a tired voice says.

Anna glances at the person behind the counter. Pink aura with streaks of yellow, still and disinterested in whether or not she actually makes a purchase. Not a threat. She grunts in acknowledgement of the words and turns back to the food.

Luckily, a radscorpion had attacked them on their way over. Luckily for her, not the scorpion. Now she has plenty of meat. Technically enough protein to tide her over. She’s about willing to murder someone for some potatoes to go with it though.

And if she saw one more bulbous, not-tomato-or-potato “tato,” she might murder someone just on general principle.

“Potatoes?” she asks the counter-person.

“I might have some in the back,” they say slowly, their aura starting to perk up with interest. “I don’t get a lot of Vaulties wandering in here, but the ones that do usually take one look at me and run back out screaming."

Anna stares at the person. She doesn’t understand. Then she finally manages to focus past the pink-yellow of their aura to see their skin is also a pinkish, burn-scar color. A ghoul then.

“Bad manners,” she says. “No potatoes for them."

The ghoul gives a raspy laugh. “That’s right. Naughty children have to shop in the regular ‘I can’t believe it’s food’ section. C’mon, I’ll show you what I’ve got back here."

Anna follows the ghoul cautiously. _Yeah, come into the back of my shop, I totally have some candy back there where no one can see us. Free puppies too._

But they don’t go far. There’s a little kitchenette behind a curtained-off section a few feet from the counter. The ghoul opens up a cabinet and takes down a bag of potatoes. There’s some carrots in the cabinet too.

“Still have my old victory garden growing strong out back,” the ghoul says proudly. “You buying or have something to trade?"

Anna considers how much meat she has. She’s also got some scavenged junk of her own, but she’s still learning the value of that stuff. Doesn’t want to insult the ghoul by offering too little or show her inexperience by offering too much. Food for food seems to be the safest option.

Then she hears Dog bark.

Anna turns and marches out of the store without a backwards glance. She’ll apologize for her rudeness later. Right now is for killing whoever is scaring her dog.

A man. Typical, low grade armor. Typical, arrogant male swagger. Smoking a cigarette that he ashes contemptuously in Dog’s direction, making her pup sneeze and back away. Deacon eases in between Dog and the man. He’s talking in that smooth used-car salesman voice he has, still trying to deescalate the situation.

Anna is about to deescalate this man’s oxygen intake.

“—sure we can come to some sort of reasonable agreement, Finn,” Deacon is saying. “Like, say, twenty caps for—"

“You pay the full hundred caps,” the man called Finn interrupts. “After all, with a mutt like this, you’re gonna need some extra protection, yeah? Wouldn’t want anything to happen to the bitch."

“Already have protection,” Anna announces, pulling Deacon back behind her. “Leave."

“How many bitches do you have?” Finn asks Deacon with a smirk

“Boss,” he says quietly. “Let’s not start out our first night here by making a scene."

Anna makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. This man pissed her off. She’s going to hurt him very badly. At least until he pisses himself. Maybe some more afterwards. It’s as simple as that to her.

Except it isn’t. She wants to solve this problem by picking the man up and snapping him over her knee like a Kit-Kat. But good parents practice problem-solving solutions that don’t involve violence. Plus, scaring the bystanders watching will make them less likely to divulge information. A man with a baby came into this settlement, and she needs to know who he was and where he went.

“I have the caps to cover this,” Deacon tells her.

“Listen to your smarter friend, lady,” Finn says. “You might be one great big hunk of ugly, but I can still shoot you in the head all the same."

Anna should kill this scum on general principle. This is _not_ how you run a protection racket. If one of her men had pulled this type of shit back when she ran rackets like this, she would have beaten them until they pissed and then made them lick the floor clean.

But being a mother is about making good longterm decisions. Not short-term instant gratification. She motions for Deacon to give the man what he wants.

And that would have been the end of it if Finn had kept his stupid mouth shut.

“And the next time I have to have this conversation with you, I’m shooting your little dog first,” he sneers.

“That right?” Anna says in a quiet voice.

“Aw, fuck,” Deacon mutters.

He begins backing away with his hands raised and whistles for Dog to follow. Anna lets her pack fall off the shoulder she’s been carrying it on. It hits the ground with a heavy thump beside her boots. Finn’s eyes instinctively follow the movement.

Mistake.

Anna surges forward in his brief moment of distraction. Her punch literally sends him flying. He hits the ground hard, but to his credit, he rolls with it. Even gets his gun out and up as she stalks toward him. His bullet hits her in the chest. Against anyone else, that would have been a good shot. Aim for the center mass and all that. But this is Anna Howard.

Not a headshot. Not a problem. 

She kicks the gun out of his hand before he can fire again. Then grabs him by the hair to slam her knee directly into his face. The bones of his nose crunch. Might have shoved them directly up into his brain.

Whether or not he’s dead isn’t really a concern for her. He either is or he’s suffering. Either solution is good.

“Open,” she commands the ghoul at the gate tower.

The gates creak open. Anna lifts Finn up by the back of his shirt and his belt. A few short steps forward, then she heaves him out of Goodneighbor like yesterday’s trash. Naughty children with bad manners go outside for a time out. She grabs the man's gun off the ground and ejects the clip. Picks up her pack again. Maybe the other ghoul in the shop will trade some food for her spoils.

A slow clap starts behind her. She turns around expecting to see Deacon leading the clap, but he’s gone. Figures that he wouldn’t stick around during a scene like that. Draws too much attention. Dogmeat is waiting in front of the general store, the ghoul inside having come up to keep a protective hand resting on top of his head. Anna whistles to him and he bounds forward.

She crouches down to hug him, ignoring the other person who finishes up their clap. When she finally does look up, the colors are too bright. Red, orange, and pink. All swirling together. It almost makes her eyes water. If Glory is fire, this person is a sunset.

“Mayor Hancock,” the person introduces themself. “Nice of you to take out my trash like that."

Anna slowly stands up. She squints past the aura and recognizes that this person is a ghoul too. It’s hard to tell gender for ghouls, with most of their features burned away. She shouldn’t be in the habit of assuming people’s genders anyway.

She grunts in reply.

“Been meaning to do that for a while myself actually, but I’m such a sucker for second chances."

The ghoul casually makes a serrated knife appear in his hand. They use it to nonchalantly clean the nails of their other hand. She barely resists the urge to roll her eyes at the dramatics.

“Now I’m not here to lecture you about murder or anything—got here that way myself actually. Just thought I’d introduce myself so you know who’s in charge of this little town."

Anna is going to be a bad, bad sexist and assume this is a male ghoul after that not-so-subtle bit of posturing. She grunts again, unimpressed.

“You don’t do a lot of talking, huh?” Mayor Hancock asks.

He scrapes something bloody out from beneath his thumbnail. It looks like a piece of flesh before he flicks it off the end of his knife. Anna still isn’t impressed. She’s picked out worse from between her teeth.

She sighs. “Acknowledge your authority. Pinky promise no trouble. Достаточно хорошо?"

“No trouble?” The mayor looks her up and down and snorts. “From you? Right. I suppose you’re just here for the potatoes."

Anna doesn’t reply. She hadn’t seen him walking into the general store, and he was hard to miss. Maybe ghouls have better hearing than humans. The feral ones certainly seem to hear anything that twitches.

Dog looks back and forth between his owner and the new person. He whines and gives her big eyes. Anna sighs again. His combat training is fine in the middle of a fight, but he’s a terrible guard dog. He thinks everyone he meets has treats and belly rubs they just can’t wait to hand out to him. She gives him the OK signal to see how the mayor will react.

“Huh? Wow, friendly boy you’ve got here.” Mayor Hancock drops some of the attitude as he smiles and crouches down to pet the dog. “Most people have their dogs trained to attack ghouls on sight."

“Is spoiled,” Anna says. “Gets many treats. No one hurts him."

And there was her own not-so-subtle threat. Mayor Hancock looks up and acknowledges it with a wry grin before going back to petting Dog. A flicker of something catches her attention out of the corner of her eye.

It’s an aura. Smoky and grey, but not like H2-22’s had been. This person looks like grey is just their natural color. Made it possible for them to get so close to Anna without her noticing. She suppresses an annoyed _tch_ sound.

“Ah.” Mayor Hancock stands up and gestures to the other person. “This is my bodyguard, Fahrenheit. She’s a bit overprotective and a lot badass. I keep this place running, but she keeps it running smoooooth."

He drawls the word with a grin and a wink back at Anna. Neither of the two women react to his flirting, whoever that had been directed at. They’re both too busy sizing each other up.

Unlike Glory, Fahrenheit doesn’t fall prey to a staring contest. She blinks freely as she looks Anna over. Which means she’s willing to sacrifice personal pride for the practical function of keeping her eyes moistened in case she needs to quickly draw and shoot.

Can’t aim with watering eyes.

Anna lets her own eyes blur out. Not really focusing on the woman directly, just a spaced out gaze in her general direction. It makes her look like she has the flat empty stare of a lizard.

It also makes it easier for her to see the other woman’s aura. The grey actually has a few streaks of brown in it, warming it a bit now that she’s close enough to notice. Fahrenheit’s colors drift over to wrap protectively around the mayor’s aura. The two sets of colors mix and intertwine.

So they like each other. Maybe as family. Maybe lovers. Best friends. Anna can’t distinguish just from their auras and she doesn’t care anyway. It’s a small point in Mayor Hancock’s favor that he has a woman in a high position and the two seem to respect each other.

“Well, unfortunately, I’ve got to ah … Jet.” The mayor pauses to chuckle at his own pun. “But if you ever need some work or just want a—“ His smile turns flirtatious again. “ _Tour_ of the Old State House, you let me know."

“Are you male?” Anna asks.

The mayor blinks at her bluntness, then seems to actually consider the question. “Yeah, I guess ‘male’ is close enough. Definitely not a woman, as slim and attractive as I may be."

“Not interested."

Mayor Hancock laughs instead of being offended. “Well, if you don’t like men, you’re in good company. Fahr isn’t such a fan herself, but I’ve managed to sweet talk her into putting me on probation."

He slings an arm across her shoulders—which he has to lean up to do. She shoots him a look, then snorts at his antics. She doesn’t shrug his arm off.

“And you got Daisy over there.” He points back at the general store. “KLE0 handles all the firepower we get through here. Magnolia sings down at the Third Rail, and I’m pretty sure Charlie will glass you for being stupid if you try to insist he has a gender. Clair keeps the Rexford Hotel in shape, and Irma runs the Memory Den with Dr. Amari."

Mayor Hancock stops and blinks up at Fahrenheit like an especially profound thought just hit him.

“Damn, am I the only man in charge of anything in this town?” he asks her.

Fahrenheit’s stoic facade cracks just a little as she smirks down at him. “We needed a figurehead."

“Wait, wait, wait.” He starts rifling through the pockets of his bright red coat. “I know I got a dirty joke about figures and head in this rotted old brain somewhere. Lemme pop a mentat and I’ll find it."

Fahrenheit clears her throat and nods pointedly at Anna.

“Right.” Mayor Hancock gives up on the mentats and shrugs. “Don’t mean to hold you up all night. The offer for work is still good though if you’re interested in that. My door’s always open."

He tips his hat to her and turns around to swagger off. Fahrenheit nods to her and follows after. Anna doesn’t bother lingering in the square. While both of them had been surprisingly interesting, they weren’t related to getting her son back.

Although she might speak to Mayor Hancock about setting up trade between his settlement and hers. Better dealing with him than Mayor McDonough in Diamond City.

But that was a thought for the morning.

“Ah, back again,” Daisy rasps as Anna steps inside the store. “‘Bout time someone took care of that piece of shit. John’s no stranger to handling stuff like that, but Finn’s been here a long time. Say, while you’re at it, maybe you can do something about this one."

Daisy jerks a thumb back at Deacon, standing in the kitchenette area. He looks over and gives Anna a cheerful wave. She blinks back at him. Dogmeat has no qualms about rushing over however, eagerly investigating what Deacon is cooking. She expected him to run off. Which he sort of did, but it looks like he didn’t go far. Out of the limelight but close enough he could have backed her up if she needed it.

This feels like friendship.

Anna doesn’t like it.

“Now, Daisy, don’t you worry about a thing,” Deacon soothes. “I’m gonna cook you up a nice supper while you just sit back and relax. When’s the last time someone spoiled you?"

“The only one spoiled around here is you, little brat,” Daisy grumps without any real heat behind her words.

Deacon shakes his head. “Not true. Dogmeat here is very spoiled."

He slips the dog a piece of carrot in demonstration. Dog doesn’t mind that his treat is a vegetable and wolfs it down.

“Anna, can I use some of your scorpion meat for this stew?” he calls over to her. “The radiation really accentuates the potatoes."

Anna considers the scene in front of her carefully. Will she be expected to help cook? Deacon is the one in the kitchen, but her danger instincts are still firing. What if he walks away as soon as she gets there? Or tells her to set the table?

_Knife and fork on one side, spoon on the other. Lay them down **straight** , woman. Are you just asking for a whuppin’?_

Anna twists her eyes shut and breathes against the echo of Joseph’s voice. Her husband—ex husband. Well. Technically not. He was dead and she ran away. Guess that made him her late husband, but then so was Nate.

Shit. When did she rack up two dead husbands?

Something wet and cold nudges her hand. She opens her eyes to see Dog patiently sitting in front of her. He bumps his head back into her hand again when he sees that she’s noticed him.

Anna crouches down to pay full attention to Dog so she doesn’t have to see the way Deacon and Daisy are looking at her. She walked into that damn little kitchenette without any problems just ten minutes ago. Nothing’s changed. And Deacon--

What? Deacon isn’t _like that_? Deacon “won’t hurt her”?

Stupid. Just because he isn’t as bad as most men doesn’t mean he’s safe.

“Take. Deacon."

Dog grabs the straps of her pack with his teeth and tugs it across the kitchenette to drop it proudly at Deacon’s feet. He looks expectantly between Anna and Deacon, tail wagging furiously.

"Good boy," Deacon tells him, giving the dog well-deserved pettings. "Next I'm going to teach you how to fetch the TV remote. The morning paper too, and my fuzzy slippers."

"You want to sit down, hon?" Daisy asks her.

Anna slowly steps farther into the store like she’s expecting an ambush at any second. So when Daisy gasps, she flinches back hard and automatically reaches for her sword hilt.

“You’re shot!” the ghoul says. “Shit, I thought he missed—well, c’mon, sit down. Let me take a look at it. Must not be too bad if you’re still upright."

“Fuck, _fuck_ ,” Deacon swears and grabs his own pack to search through it. “You know, that’s actually not the case. Anna doesn’t feel pain, so she might be dead right now without noticing it. My bad, I should have double-checked."

The lighthearted tone of his voice is at odds with the way he tears his pack apart looking for a stimpack. His aura strains to reach out to hers. Anna leans away from it. She doesn’t like this. Any of it. Daisy looking at her. Him acting like he cares or something. Dog has noticed the mood in the room too, and now he’s whining softly.

Anna looks down to survey the damage herself. The bullet actually sticks out of her chest, caught in the links of her mail armor. Her vault suit beneath isn’t quite bullet proof like kevlar, but it’s reinforced enough that the two sets of armor kept the small caliber bullet from actually penetrating.

Too far.

If she concentrates, she can feel that the bullet is kind of piercing her flesh. And there’s bound to be a lot of bruising from the impact of being shot at such close range. She rolls her shoulders back. Her ribs don’t seem to be broken or cracked. Breathing probably hurts if that was something she cared about, but she’s able to draw air into her lungs mostly unrestricted and that’s all that really matters to her.

Anna picks the bullet out and sets it on the counter.

“There,” she announces.

Deacon looks up, having finally found a stimpack. Daisy has been staring at her the whole time. She resists the urge to hunch her shoulders under both of their gazes at once.

“Fixed,” she says.

Deacon and Daisy share a look between each other. Anna narrows her eyes. Sometimes people can communicate like that. With expressions and body language. No words needed. And they can’t even see auras. If a scientist ever told her that everyone else was secretly telepathic, she’d accept that as truth.

“Nooo,” he says slowly when he looks back at her. “Not yet. Let me put a stim on it."

Anna steps back and shakes her head.

“Do you want Daisy to help you instead?"

If she was interested in using the stimpack, then yes. That’s what she’d prefer. His question is very thoughtful. Anna wants to pick him up and shake him. Why is he doing this? She’s already working with his organization. He doesn’t need to keep pretending to be nice to her.

“Am only bruised,” she mutters.

“I heard one time General Anna Howard got shot in the chest at point blank range and it actually gave her a _bruise_ ,” Deacon says. “God, no wonder no one believes anything I say about you. I don’t even believe it."

“Listen hon,” Daisy tells her gently. “If it’s caps you’re worried about—"

Anna shakes her head again. “Wasteful."

No point wasting a stimpack on a scratch and some bruises.

“Would you think it’s wasteful if Dogmeat was the one who was hurt?” Deacon asks.

“Нет."

“Then why is it a waste for you to use the stim?"

Anna shrugs. “Am not dog."

Deacon and Daisy silently communicate with the Look again. How are they doing that? What are their faces expressing to each other?

“You’re a human being, hon,” Daisy tells her. “That’s quite a bit above a dog."

Deacon nods. “And you deserve medical treatment to—"

Anna’s laugh cuts him off. It’s bitter and scrapes out of her throat like spitting nails. She "deserves medical treatment.” Right.

Her mother deserved medical treatment when the lumps on her breast appeared.

Her eleven-year-old cousin Vickie deserved medical treatment when she got bit by a tick and caught Lymes’ Disease.

She deserved medical treatment when she poured industrial bleach on her face at eight years old to try to scrub the evil out of her eyes.

Deserves medical treatment.

Anna is distantly aware that she’s grinning and it isn’t a pretty sight. She wants to go get Finn’s body and rip it apart just to have something to take her surge of rage out on.

And the worst part is that she agrees. Intellectually, she agrees that everyone should have access to medical treatment. She hated that the doctors Pre-War cared so little about women and their symptoms. Brushed off their complaints of pain. How long she suffered from endometriosis because everyone said periods were just supposed to hurt like that.

How it took her almost four years to get pregnant with Shaun because she’d nearly been left infertile from it.

And now here’s a man saying all the right things. That she deserves medical treatment. That she shouldn’t be in pain. That resources aren’t wasted if they’re given to her. Everything she’d always hoped for.

But her son is gone and the world is dead and it doesn’t even fucking matter anymore.

All she wants to do is scream.

It’s a cold, wet nose pressing against her hand that brings her back again. Dog licks her fingers and whines at her. Anna sits down. Just folds up and takes a seat on the floor so she can rest her head against soft fur. Dog stands between her and the two other people. The pink-yellow aura and the blue one.

“Yeah, it’s OK, buddy. Anna just needs a few minutes to breathe. She’ll be fine."

She’s Anna. Right. Anna is her. That’s what she calls herself now. Bethany Anne is dead. She’s Anna now. And this is her dog.

She lifts her hands and uses them to sign to the blue voice. Just like last time, he understands what she means.

“Yes, Dogmeat is a good boy. He’s a very good boy."

“He’s just worried about his mom right now,” the raspy voice says.

Anna hears the blue voice suck in a sharp breath at the m-word. It’s fine though. That’s why she adopted this dog. There’s no point in finding Shaun if she turns into a monster along the way. The dog is to help keep her good. Make sure she’s still Anna by the time she finds her son again.

She clears her throat. “Worried?"

“Yeah, Dogmeat is worried about you."

Anna looks up to see the blue voice using his hands to half-sign and half-spell out what he’s saying. Which is nice, but mostly unneeded. She can almost always process other people’s words. It’s her own that escape her.

Like his name. The blue voice has a name. She still knows him. Is still aware that they’re traveling together, he works for those spy people, they’re trying to find her son. All the big picture stuff is still there in her mind. But the little details are slippery.

Connie. Got in trouble once for wearing lavender panty hose instead of flesh-colored. Still a mystery how she smuggled them into the campground. A soft peach aura instead of blue.

Connie, though. Con. Con something. No. Something-Con. Starts with a d.

Oh. D-con. Deacon.

“He knows you’re hurt, and he doesn’t like it,” Deacon says.

Dammit. Anna knows he’s deliberately trying to make her draw the connection that if she took the stimpack, her dog won’t be sad anymore. He’s using her love of her dog to try to make her care about herself by proxy.

It’s pretty smart, actually. She mentally files that away in her list of nonviolent solutions to use as a parent. Just in case Shaun turns out like her and also can’t process pain.

"Half stim," she finally says.

"That's a compromise I can work with," he replies. "You good to do it yourself or d'you want Daisy to do the honors?"

"Myself."

"Then I'm going to give these old bones a rest," Daisy announces, taking a seat at the kitchen table. "You're welcome to have a seat too, since you two are apparently staying for supper."

Deacon tosses Anna the stimpack and Daisy his most charming smile. "Making supper _for_ you."

"Yeah, yeah."

The stim eases the tug on her chest when she inhales, and Dog does cheer up after she takes half of it. Anna stays on the floor next to him for another minute. No one expects her to cook. Even if they did, one meal won't turn her into an obedient terrified housewife again. This isn't like before.

No cooking. She's fine. Not like before.

Anna repeats that mantra to herself as she walks into the kitchen. Daisy kicks out a seat for her. It's quiet save for Deacon's humming while he cooks. Dogmeat lays down with a yawn and then Anna is left staring at her hands in silence. A few gunshots pop off in the distance, but none of them bother reacting to that.

"So how'd a tough gal like you make friends with this ray of nurturing sunshine?" Daisy asks.

"Had crush on Mr. Clean as child," Anna says.

Daisy's answering laugh is half a snort and half a bark.

"Hey, I resemble that," Deacon says in mock offense.

The ghoul chuckles again and waves him off. "I suppose there's no accounting for taste."

"I'll have you know I'm much cooler than him," he replies. "You see these shades? Bitchin'."

"Imagine if found bedazzler," Anna says.

Daisy guffaws again. "God save us."

"If I found a bedazzler, that would be God blessing you," Deacon retorts. "I am a gift to you all."

"Do you come with a receipt?" Daisy asks.

Deacon gasps. "After I work all day over a hot stove, this is the thanks I get. I see how it is."

The banter is ... nice. But Anna has to suppress the urge to raise her hand. Is it her turn to speak now? She actually has something she wants to say for once. Somehow, Deacon seems to notice her dilemma. Maybe he really is telepathic.

"Anna, do you want to jump in and defend my honor?" he asks her. "Or change the subject to polite dinner conversation, whatever that may be."

"Looking for someone," she says.

That will just have to be close enough. At least she didn't accidentally talk over someone.

"I see just about everyone who passes through here," Daisy tells her. "Run it by me."

"Man with baby."

Daisy nods. "Yeah, we had a guy come through just recently. Cute little girl. She kept trying to grab where me and John's noses used to be and giggling. He spoiled her rotten."

Anna swallows hard and looks back down at her hands.

"You're sure it was a girl?" Deacon asks.

"Changed her diaper," Daisy answers, then takes a second look at him and pauses. "Well. Suppose she might decide different for herself later on."

"S'all right." Deacon shrugs off her comment. "Thanks for letting us know."

The ghoul nods. "Now. You gonna tell me what interest you've got in a baby?"

"Mine," Anna says softly before he can reply. "Taken."

"Looks like the Institute did it," Deacon adds grimly. "We're trying to track down the merc they hired, see if anyone matching his description showed up someplace with a baby."

"I'll keep my eye out," Daisy promises. "And if there's anything else I can do to help catch that bastard, you let me know."

*******

“Ahhh, hotel, sweet hotel,” Deacon says as he steps inside the room he bought for them.

Dogmeat squeezes past him in his eagerness to sniff out the new place. Deacon doesn’t have the heart to warn the puppy that the most prevalent odor is eu de piss. Dog seems to catch on anyway as he lifts his leg and piddles a bit in the corner.

There. Now it’s home.

Deacon takes a seat in the only chair, the wooden legs creaking just about as badly as his knees when he sits down. Being a synth might have slowed down his aging process, but he sure as shit isn’t getting any younger. Anna’s body doesn’t make a peep of protest when she sits on the edge of the bed. Like her joints know better than to piss her off.

“Cigarette break,” she says.

Her head tips slightly toward the door. Since she said she quit, Deacon is assuming this is his cue to go fuck off for a few minutes. He can hope in the depths of his desperate, shriveled little heart that she just wants some privacy to take a shit, but he saw her talking with Fred in the lobby.

"Good idea,” he says, smiling like he could care less what she does with her spare time. "Gotta feed this ole nicotine habit. I'll be back in a few."

Dogmeat chooses to stay in the room with Anna, so he’s alone when he steps out into the hallway. He debates for a moment, then gives her the courtesy of at least stepping a few feet away. Doesn’t leave the hallway though.

His hands shake a little lighting up his cigarette and he grits his teeth. It’s not a big deal. Lots of people do chems in this shit world, and considering how heavily he once used, he’s got no room to judge them. Seeing other people shoot up does make his stomach a bit queasy, but he’s just as good at repressing that as everything else. He’s not even seeing it this time. He’s out here in the hallway and she’s in her room and--

Deacon lets his head thump back against the wall. This is why he doesn’t take a partner, this is why he doesn’t take a _goddamn_ partner.

The nicotine helps calm his nerves a little bit as he takes the deepest drags he can manage off the cigarette. Yeah, he might have quit the Jet, but his lungs have still got it.

He wonders what Anna bought. If she’s smart and he’s lucky, it’ll be a downer. Some Jet or Daddy-O. Fuck, please don’t let it be Psycho. Jet to sleep and Psycho to wake up, Mentats to focus and Buff Out to get shit done, handed out like candy by the UP--

Deacon stabs the lit end of the cigarette into the inside of his arm.

The pain is oddly soothing. A here and now hurt that he can look at and easily see the cause of. Grounding him against the swirl of emotions and his churning stomach. It’s fine, everything’s fine. Anna is an adult who can make her own decisions and they’re none of his business. She’ll probably be done huffing or shooting up with whatever she bought by now anyway.

He still knocks lightly just in case, resisting the urge to shuffle his feet. Cool, it’s cool, stay cool.

“Come in."

All right, fuck. His hackles practically jump up at the sound of her voice. An actual response where just a grunt would do? Not like Anna.

Deacon walks inside the room with a practiced stroll, the one he specifically crafted for when he needs to look casual when his whole brain is filled with screeching alarm sirens. Then he catches sight of the needle still buried in her arm as she pushes the syringe the rest of the way down, and it takes every bit of his self-control not to physically sag back against the wall in relief.

Med-X. It’s just fucking Med-X.

Which, yeah. He’s still not a super big fan of. People sure as shit abuse and get addicted to that, but if Anna is finally admitting she’s in pain and taking something for it, who’s he to begrudge her a good night’s sleep? This must be the first real bed she’s slept on since Sanctuary.

The Switchboard is so crowded with people that everyone just claims whatever worn out mattress or sleeping bag laying around on the floor that they can get. And she hasn’t been sleeping down there with the other agents, which means she’s probably been curling up on the bare floor in a corner somewhere.

Dogmeat is even on the bed next to her, and Anna wouldn’t risk hurting her dog if she was on anything stronger, so—

“So I guess I’m taking the first watch then?” Deacon asks, just to have something to say to stop the relieved rambling in his head. “I don’t mind. Those mattresses are hell on my back."

Anna takes the needle out and leans over the edge of the bed to carefully put the empty syringe back into her pack. A glint of swinging metal catches his eye. Her chain mail armor is draped over the headboard of the bed and boots neatly arranged next to her pack, leaving just her in just her vault suit.

It’s the zipper of her vault suit. Pulled down.

Deacon looks away and fiddles with his lighter. It’s a nervous habit, but one he’s aware of. He’d rather give away this slight tell than stare at a drugged woman’s chest. He’s done enough ogling at the muscles in her arms lately anyway, and he’s going to get caught looking thirsty if he doesn’t put himself in check.

“Can share,” Anna says.

It’s so good to hear her regular syntax again—the pronoun and direct object clarifying exactly what they can share both dropped—that Deacon doesn’t even think about his question before he asks.

“Share what?"

She lets her head flop to the side to look at him. “Bed."

Deacon blinks at her, the action thankfully hidden behind his sunglasses, but he’s aware that she can see the way his thumb freezes on the lid of the lighter he’s been flicking open and shut. The absence of click-clack echoes louder in the silence than the actual noise had made.

He chuckles, hoping his nervousness doesn't strain the sound. “Well, I wouldn’t want to put Dogmeat on the floor."

Anna blinks much more slowly than him. “Oh."

He hopes that will be the end of it, but she turns and points Dogmeat to the floor. The poor puppy immediately hopes down and sits on the floor like a good boy. He starts to protest, but his words catch in his throat when she sits up, swaying for a moment before shooting him a small, self-conscious smile.

Deacon can practically hear his brain shouting “Danger, Will Robinson!” and he has to push down a bubble of hysterical laughter because he doesn't even know who the fuck Will Robinson is. This is wrong, it’s all wrong. His stupid, useless paranoia pushes forward the idea that Anna has been replaced by a synth mistakenly programmed with normal grasp of social situations in his five minute absence.

Because Anna’s smiles always look terrifying. She doesn’t even smile, she just awkwardly peels her lips away from her teeth.

But this smile is appropriately self-depricating at her sudden lack of balance, and even a little shy. She could be any woman who accidentally got a little too tipsy in front of her friend—but she isn’t Anna Howard.

“You look a little unsteady there, boss,” Deacon says. “Why don’t you just lay back down?"

Anna shakes her head a little too vigorously, like a toddler denying nap time. Then she actually gets to her feet, her gait a bit uneven as she walks over to him.

Before suddenly dropping to her knees in between his legs.

It’s too late to slam his knees back together, and she’s got her hands on his thighs—they are in fact, large enough to cover the entire tops of his legs like he may or may not have imagined—and he has to grip the arm of the chair with his free hand to keep from scrambling up the back of it to get away.

“I want … wanna thank you,” Anna says softly, just a hint of a slur in her voice.

DANGER DANGER _DANGER_ , WILL ROBINSON.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deacon totally spreads rumors like,
> 
> "One time General Anna Howard got shot with a missile and the Super Mutant exploded."
> 
> "General Anna Howard fist fought Arthur Maxson and he had to change his name to 'every other Tuesday' steel."
> 
> "Deathclaws don't fuck with General Anna Howard because they don't want to be deadclaws."
> 
> *******
> 
> Достаточно хорошо? - Good enough?
> 
> PS: the next chapter will be from Anna's POV, showing what's going on here at the end ...


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna and Deacon both pull trust tests on each other because they are my paranoid trash babies who have never seen a "friendship" before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anna expresses some pretty negative opinions of men, mainly that they're all horrible and will hurt women at any given opportunity, as that's her lived experience growing up in a patriarchal church-cult and then seeing how men treated her best friend as a sex worker. She's aware of this prejudice though and ultimately wants to work past it to be a good mother for Shaun, but that's a long-term character arc thing. Please don't leave reviews yelling about how not all men are like that and Anna was being mean or unfair to pull this trick on Deacon.
> 
> as far as trigger warnings go: the first half of the chapter is a situation that seems non-con, but nothing actually happens. just warning for people who get squicky about that stuff. there's also mention of Deacon feeling dysphoric again, and generalized recall on Anna's part of some misogynist violence she and Kotku have went through. nothing graphic or detailed on anything of this though.

"Ahhh, hotel, sweet hotel."

Anna hangs back as Deacon steps inside the room he'd bought. Dogmeat pushes between his legs to get inside first. She's certain there'll be plenty of new scents for him to sniff inside the room. Mostly from bodily fluids. She walks in last. There's only one bed, but Deacon takes a seat in the chair against the wall without protest. She wouldn't mind taking the chair herself, but that that setup won't work for what she has in mind.

He's been watching her ever since she spoke to the man selling chems in the lobby. It had been a purchase of opportunity. She hadn't expected chems to be _that_ easy to find, although she's getting the sense that's just how Goodneighbor works.

"Cigarette break."

Anna doesn't look at Deacon when she speaks. Just sits down on the edge of the bed and starts untying the laces of her boots. He slaps his thighs with his palms and exhales as he stands up. It's strange how normal he is in this post-apocalyptic world. Slap him in a pair of khaki capris, a Hawaiian shirt, and some sandals-with-socks. Stick him in a backyard barbeque. Ten minutes later and he'd be insisting he knows how to work this grill, just hold your horses there, tiger.

"Good idea," Deacon says with his usual cheer. "Gotta feed this ole nicotine habit. I'll be back in a few."

He moseys out the door like she hadn't just politely told him to go fuck off for a while. As politely as Anna knew how at any rate. While he's gone, she takes out the vial of Med-X she'd bought. An empty syringe too. Guess some people cooked their own shit around here and needed empty ones. The needles being dirty is just a risk she'll have to take.

In another minute, she has the fluids in the syringes swapped. Stim into the empty. Med-X into the old stim syringe. Stim back into the Med-X syringe. It isn't a perfect swap. She'd already taken half the stim back at Daisy's. She'll have to time it right to pull this off.

Dog jumps up on the bed and settles down next to her. She pats his head before she stands. Another minute and she has her mail suit off. Drapes it over her pack on the floor. Sets her boots neatly in line beside them.

For once, she wishes for a mirror. There's not much she can do about her face. Or the size of her body. Scars and stretch marks. Anna snorts at herself and flops back down on the bed. It shudders with a disgruntled creak. There's really not much she can do at all to increase her appeal. She finally settles for pulling down the zipper of her vault suit a little.

Then she has to clap a hand over her mouth to stifle a slightly hysterical laugh. Her breasts barely swelled to a B cup even while she was nursing Shaun. Which she had to quit. It was either stay home all the time in order to feed him or be shamed and yelled at for trying to do it in public. Now they were barely-there bumps over hard pectoral muscles.

Sexy.

Anna has the needle poised over a vein in her arm when there's a soft knock at the door. That makes her pause and blink up at the ceiling. Nice. He's so fucking nice. Well, she's about to find out how "nice" he really is.

She calls for him to come in and pushes the pump of the syringe all the way down just as he steps back into the room. His sunglasses are back on so she can't see his eyes. She doesn't need to. His aura is held up high and tense, but sags down with … relief? Maybe. It reacts in some way when he spots the needle in her arm.

"So I guess I'll be taking the first watch then?" Deacon asks as he settles back down in the chair. "I don't mind. Those mattresses are hell on my back."

Anna leans over the side of the bed to put the now-empty syringe with the other empty one and the real Med-X. She thinks she feels his gaze on her for a moment. Deacon is staring at his lighter as he flips the lid open and shut when she pushes back up though.

Now comes the tricky part.

“Can share,” she says.

“Share what?” Deacon asks easily, still click-clacking his lighter.

“The bed."

His head finally lifts up. She thinks he meets her eyes past the shades of his sunglasses. The click-clack stops abruptly as his whole aura freezes mid-swirl.

Then he chuckles. “Well, I wouldn’t want to put Dogmeat on the floor."

“Oh."

Shit. She forgot about that. Can’t really lure a man into your bed if there’s already a dog in it. Luckily, Dog is a good boy who immediately hops down when she snaps her fingers and points to the floor.

The “Med-X” she took should be kicking in about now. Anna deliberately sways a little when she sits up and gives him the smile she’d practiced for hours with Nate. That’s the one she’s supposed to make when she messes up a little. Or is uncertain about something. He said she could pass off a lot of her social missteps with a shy, self-deprecating smile.

It makes her face feel weird.

Anna estimates she has to devote five percent of her brain power to maintaining a smile like that accurately. Which isn’t too much. Except she also has to spend ten percent on regulating her voice volume and tone.

Fifteen on keeping her thick body light and graceful. Squeezing past and into too-small spaces. Never knocking anything over. Making her footfalls as soft as possible.

And on and on. Devoting so much of her mental energy to looking right and sounding nice that she doesn’t have anything left to think of what to say. The simplest of conversations can wear her out in a matter of minutes.

But she only needs a couple of them to pull this off.

“You look a little unsteady there, boss,” Deacon says. “Why don’t you just lie back down?"

Anna fights back a frown. Is that genuine concern in his voice? Or does he want her to lie down so she’s easier to manage? Whenever Kotku so much as glanced at a drink, the men around her were always quick to tell her she should lie down.

On their couch. In their bed. The backseat of their car.

The Med-X gives her a little leeway. Her responses should be just a little bit too slow at this point. Anna shakes her head, the action buying her a bit more time to think.

Lying down would give up too much control. She needs to stay in control without him knowing it. So she stands up and wobbles her way over to him. Drops to her knees between his legs.

“I want …” Anna pauses and slurs her voice. “… wanna thank you."

There. Nothing ambiguous about that.

“I really haven’t done all that much,” he says.

Interesting. Not the catalogue of “I did this, this, and this for you so now you owe me” that she expected. One time she hadn’t been there to help Kotku carry the groceries home. It was raining and she was tired, so she let a man with an umbrella grab a bag and walk her home.

He’d screamed at her on the side of the street and grabbed her wrist until it bruised when she wouldn’t give him her phone number in return.

They were too poor to afford a phone line.

Anna knows that men can never, ever be trusted. Maybe Deacon isn’t trying to fuck her yet because he genuinely isn’t attracted to her? She knows she’s ugly, but a mouth is a mouth.

“Y’bought mmmy sword,” she presses, squeezing his thighs.

Deacon’s voice catches in his throat, but then he carefully takes her right hand and places it on the armrest of the chair. Does the same for her left. Clears his throat.

“We already had a deal for that,” he says. “So we’re even now, no worries, no refunds, no thanks necessary."

What’s she doing wrong? Or is he actually … literally … a nice g—

Oh. Right.

“Dun’care ‘bout whaz in ya pants,” she says, making her slur thicker. “S’okay, whate'er ya got."

Anna even sways again, “catching” herself against the side of his leg. She rests her chin against his thigh and breaks out another smile. The bubbly drunk one. Eyes a little glassy. Grin a bit too wide. Blinking at odd times.

Totally unable to consent and likely about to pass out. He should be all over her.

“Good to know,” Deacon replies. “But how about you thank me in the morning, when you're sober. A Hallmark card will do."

Anna blinks up at him in confusion. For the first time this night, it’s not an act. Is he actually going to pass this test? Has she found the unicorn of men? A real, live, genuine “nice guy”?

“But—"

“C’mon,” he interrupts, pushing lightly on her upper arm. “Upsie-daisy. I am very old and my bedtime was at eight’o’clock."

Anna allows herself to be guided up and back to the bed. It takes all of her concentration not to tense up with his hands on her. Pushing. _Gently_ pushing, but pushing her down all the same.

“Ya deserve somethin’ fer bein’ so nice t’me."

Goddamn. And there’s her stupid fucking southern accent coming out. That’s what happens when she speaks in full sentences. So much better to fall into the easy syntax of a Russian accent. But so much for that now.

“Not how that works, boss."

Deacon leans over her and this time Anna can’t stop herself from locking up. But his hands only grab the thin sheet and pull it over her body.

“But we can learn about the nuances of consent in the morning,” he continues. “Dogmeat! Hey, buddy, come snuggle mommy."

Dog lifts his head from where he’s been lying on the floor, and then eagerly jumps back onto the bed at the invitation. Anna automatically opens her arms to let him wriggle in close to her.

“Good boy,” Deacon says. “I’ll keep watch while you sleep that off, all right?"

Anna stares up at the ceiling. Shit. She had a plan for when he tried to fuck her. Typed out a very stern lecture about consent on her Pipboy and memorized it. Go track the two other leads by herself, having proven that he really wasn’t a nice person or her “friend."

But she was wrong?

She isn’t prepared for this. She honestly didn’t think there was any possible way he would … treat her … respectfully?

Anna sounds out the words in her head. It sounds fake. This whole evening feels unreal. For a moment she wonders if she really did take the Med-X and this is all some sort of hallucination.

“Прости."

It’s easier to say the apology in Russian. Her insides still feel squirmy and wrong though.

“Хорошо,” Deacon replies. “Ah … ты хорошо? Anyway, you’re fine. Not many people can resist all this natural charm for long."

Anna sits up without the pretense of unsteady balance she put on earlier. His aura slows in its usual swirl as he focuses on her. He can probably tell something is different.

“For tricking you,” she says, no hint of a slur.

His aura stills entirely at the realization that she’s not high at all. She waits for the anger and accusations.

Deacon laughs. He slumps down in his seat and laughs until he has to clutch his side.

“I—wait no, sorry,” he gasps. “M’not … I’m not laughing at you. It’s me, I—"

He goes back to chuckling for a bit, then lets out a big rush of air. Anna stays perfectly still on the bed. Nothing about how he reacts has lined up with what she expected. She doesn’t like being thrown off balance like this. He has to be mad at her. But it’s not showing up in his aura. Is he hiding it somehow? Usually auras give her advance warning when men are about to hurt her, but if he’s somehow circumvented that, then she might be in real danger.

Dog cocks his head and thumps his tail against the bed. He thinks the laughter is a happiness thing. Deacon wouldn’t hurt her dog, would he? She’d carried out this act knowing it could lead to aggression from him without considering that it could get Dog hurt too.

Stupid. Selfish.

“Whoo boy,” Deacon says when he finally recovers. “You really got me. I totally believed—holy shit, the Railroad’s best agent, bamboozled."

So it’s a pride thing. She tricked him when he should be the one doing the tricking. Men always get violent when their pride is hurt. Anna tries to subtly push Dog back to the floor so he can get down beneath the bed, but he doesn’t understand they’re in danger.

“That was a good one,” he continues. “But now I’m kind of in a tough spot."

Anna doubts there’s any way for Railroad agents to be “fired.” If things don’t work out, he’s probably under orders to kill her so she can’t sell their location to the highest bidder. He keeps his gun tucked in the waistband of his jeans at his lower back. Hidden, but not easy access. Reaching behind himself and in between his back and the chair will be awkward. Should give her enough time to roll off the bed. Drag her dog down with her. Maybe even flip the bed up for cover.

She’s preparing to do exactly that when he speaks again.

“See, I was gonna do the same thing to you."

That’s unexpected enough that she hesitates. He was also going to be pretend to get high and come onto her to see if she’d rape him under the right circumstances?

“Not exactly the same thing,” Deacon says, apparently noticing her confusion. “I put all the new recruits through this test, where I uh, let them know the truth. Sort of."

He’s not reaching for his gun. This isn’t the scenario Anna is prepared for. She’s not even certainly what this situation even is.

“Sometimes after synths escape they—well, we.” He stops and shoots her a wry grin. “And I suppose that gives it away, huh? We stick around, with the Railroad. Help others get out. I didn’t join up immediately. Fucked around for a bit trying to be normal. Didn’t work out."

We. So Deacon is a synth. He must have been out long enough for his aura to develop a color. Maybe that means H2-22 can develop his own color too.

Anna blinks hard. Those thoughts are a distraction. Deacon hasn’t moved in the split second it took her to blink, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.

“What I do is give them a fake recall code,” he tells her. “Yeah, sure, everyone at the Railroad _says_ they’re cool with synths, but the Institute burns through a lot of humans too, razing settlements for resources. People who just happen to get in the way. Not everyone joins up out of the goodness of their heart."

Anna starts to relax, leaning back against the headboard of the bed. Dog still hasn’t picked up any aggression from him. Deacon’s aura is back to its usual whirlpool of blue. No sign of anger. No projected movement for either his gun or toward her.

“And the tricky part is, those people who want revenge? It’s synths who killed their families. Coursers, gen one and two models, secret synth informants pretending to be human. They’ll work with us to fuck over the Institute, but that doesn’t mean they’re synth-friendly by any stretch of the imagination."

If he’s a synth, then he’s at least been discriminated against too. Civilization only exists in small pockets now, so she’s not sure if “oppressed” is the right word. That implies there’s still a functioning society with uniform laws and media. But he’s probably had to worry about being hurt or killed for who he is.

And that’s on top of being trans. She has no idea how that’s viewed today. Was Tommy’s behavior typical or is he solely an asshole all by himself?

Maybe Deacon understands what it’s like, never being able to stop worrying about being raped or murdered.

“So I pretend to give my recall code to each new recruit,” he says. “The codes basically restore us to our ‘factory settings.’ We’ve rescued two synths so far who were in the process of being recalled by coursers. Since they were reset back to a state before the security protocols wiped them, we managed to get a little bit of information out of them. And so if these recruits really, _really_ want a lead on the Institute, they can read mine. But only as a last resort, because it will wipe my whole personality."

Anna frowns and makes a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat. “If true, you would never give that to some new recruit. Would be Desdemona."

Deacon grins again and shoots a single finger gun at her. “Right-o. But most newbies aren’t thinking logical like that. The ones that don’t fall for it get extra brownie points, but that’s pretty rare. Most just open up the little slip of paper and read it right there."

“They just—“ This time the noise Anna makes sounds more like a growl. “Kill you."

“Well, they’re not thinking of it like that,” he points out gently. “It’s not murder to them. Just resetting a synth."

“Wrong."

“Sometimes they hold onto it for a while,” he says, as if that makes any difference. “It’s hard to resist against that kind of temptation though. Eventually they say it. The ones that actually manage to surprise me with it also get extra points."

“For premeditated murder?” Anna asks insistently.

Deacon shrugs. “It’s not actually my code. It doesn’t work, they realize they’ve been duped, we have a long talk about not trusting everything people say and how serious codes are for synths."

“Should be kicked out,” Anna mutters. “Would’ve left you. If you failed test."

“That’s good,” he says. “You should have standards like that. But we don’t usually have the luxury of high standards, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by Tommy Whispers still hanging around. We take whoever we can get."

She grunts, and pets Dog to calm herself. This is what happens when she gets attached to people. Her emotions splatter everywhere, messy and confused. At least it looks like he’s not going to kill her though.

And that she won’t have to kill him in self-defense. Anna pauses and thinks that over. Her plan had been purely defensive. Protect her dog. Make cover. And then? Her plan becomes fuzzy after that. What had she been thinking of? She’d just assumed she would automatically fight, yet she hadn’t charted forward in that course of action. Everything just glossed over after hunkering down for cover.

That was the trouble with having principles. You couldn’t kill your friends.

Черт побери.

“Listen though."

Anna looks up at him, and Deacon leans forward in the chair.

“Desdemona does know my code,” he says. “If these leads don’t pan out, then maybe—"

“Нет.” She shakes her head. “Is murder."

“It’s a _chance_ of murder,” he corrects. “We’ve never known a synth beforehand and then seen them reset. Desdemona and Tinker Tom both know my uh … source code. Files. Memory storage. All that good stuff. She won’t hear any more about it from me, but if you ask—"

“No."

Anna takes a breath to keep arguing, then pauses. She’s interrupted him twice now. She hates when men interrupt her. Like her opinion is so stupid and unimportant, it doesn’t even deserve to be said.

Since Deacon passed her test, that does mean he really is her friend now.

“Прости,” she repeats softly. “Interruptions are bad."

“Well, it was good of you to apologize and acknowledge that,” Deacon offers. “And I was just going to say that she might listen to you."

Anna stays quiet. She’s not sure if he’s done. Another five percent of her mental energy just to figure out whose turn it is to speak. People should be required to raise their hands during all conversations. It would make them much easier.

“I’m done now,” Deacon tells her. “What did you want to say?"

She takes a deep breath. “Will not risk murdering you."

“Not even to get Kellog?” he asks. “With Shaun and everything, I wouldn’t blame you. Done."

Anna blinks and looks up at him. He’s specifying when he’s done and she can speak. Out of everything, that’s what makes her feel like crying.

She’s in too deep and she’s only noticing it now that the water is up to her neck.

“Mm-mmm.” She has to take a few controlled breaths before she gets her words back. “Tell Shaun what? Mommy killed friend to find you. But don’t feel bad! Don’t think is your fault! Also, do not murder. Is bad."

"Do as I say, not as I do," Deacon murmurs. "Yeah, not really the best parenting philosophy. All right, how about a subject change?"

Anna nods, shoving her feelings back into the shame box where they belong.

"You thinking about sleeping the whole night through, or do you want to stick to our system of watch duty?" he asks her.

"Watch."

"Still want the morning shift?"

"Mmhmm."

"I'll wake you up at two then."

Anna waits. Replying to questions is easy. People ask, then stop to wait for the answer. She's not so sure Deacon is done talking now and he hasn't said done. But then he pauses in settling down in the chair for the night.

"Sorry, done."

"Can switch," she says. "Will take chair. You can have bed."

He cocks his head to the side. "You sure?"

"Да."

***

Deacon wakes up to a rhythmic thumping. He's in the Rexford Hotel, in the bed, back shoved up against the wall so that he's facing the door. His first thought after orientating himself is that it's just someone getting some in the next room, but the thumping is too close. Inside his room. He yawns and scratches his chest, then reaches behind him like he needs to scratch his back next. His hand closes around the grip of his gun as his eyes open to see Anna doing pushups on the floor next to the bed, pushing up high enough to clap her hands together before she comes down.

Dogmeat immediately perks up, then jumps onto the bed to snuggle into his side. Deacon mumbles something past the sleep in his throat and hugs his buddy close, drifting back into a light doze. He wakes again when the thumping stops. Cracks his eyes open and this time Anna is doing a handstand, except with only one hand, lowering herself down and then pushing back up in some sort of hell-pushup that makes him groan and hide his face in Dog's fur just looking at her.

He's a big fan of Anna's arms--that whole "I bench pressed your daughter and made her gay" muscle look is really working for his needy sub ass--but god. At what cost?

"Awake?"

Deacon snuggles in deeper beneath the blanket at Anna's voice, replying with a slightly petulant, "No."

She snorts in response. He doesn't even want to see what she's doing next. Probably levitating.

"I looked at you and it made me tired," he grumbles, absently petting Dogmeat.

"Was not even hard exercise."

That finally does get him to raise his head. "What could possibly be more difficult than that?"

Anna takes a deep breath and flips back up onto her hands. Deacon imagines how tight her core muscles must be to keep her stomach and legs held perfectly still and straight above her. Then she slowly begins to lift up, and his first delirious thought is that she really is levitating, until he realizes she's pushing up onto her fingertips instead of her palms, her arm muscles straining against the tight fabric of the vault suit, sweat already soaking the fabric a darker navy blue under her arms and at her back--

"Jesus Christ, stop, you're making me wet," Deacon blurts out.

Anna loses concentration and collapses to the floor. For a second he thinks the shaking in her shoulders means something is wrong, but then he hears the laughter she's trying to muffle against one arm. He can't help but chuckle along with her after that.

He's so used to people assuming he has a vagina--once they find out about the lack of a penis, of course--that sometimes he talks about himself like he really does. Even though he still looks down sometimes and expects to see a penis. That's probably what he would choose, if he ever found a surgeon he trusted enough for that, if he managed to salvage some kind of penis to actually have attached--from a Gen 3 maybe? He can't imagine any of them would want to be that kind of organ donor though, so they'd have to be like, body-still-warm freshly dead, and since his urethra is exactly centered down there instead of a bit higher up where it would normally be on humans, the surgeon would have to reroute--

Deacon isn't laughing anymore. Anna has lapsed into a silence of her own. At least Dogmeat doesn't need words to be happy. He bumps his head against Deacon's idle hand as a reminder that his petting isn't over and then is perfectly content once more with the resumed head scratching.

"Not mad?" Anna's voice drifts up quietly from the floor.

"About last night?" he guesses. "Don't worry about it. Kind of nice to meet someone just as paranoid as me, actually. Normally I'm the one explaining that the loyalty test really was necessary, and you never know who you're working with, and blah blah blah I toootally won't lie again, Scout's promise."

"Honor."

"Tato, potato."

The silence washes over them again. Giving up the recall code had been unfortunate, but necessary. The best way to sell a lie was to admit to a smaller lie first, let the other person think they've caught you in the act and now you have to own up. So he'd been honest about his plan to put her through the recall test, but the other stuff he'd said about how the code might reset synths to a point where they recover some of the memories they had before the security protocols wiped them--all bullshit. A recall code wiped and shut down a synth completely. No restarting. Have to upload a completely new personality interface to get them functional again.

But if Anna ever gets desperate enough to burn him to get to the Institute, Desdemona will know. He doesn't mind being the canary in this warning system, is even fairly certain Dez wouldn't actually give it to Anna. And when she does ask, he can take it back. Tell her his entire claim of being a synth was fake just like his false info on how the recall codes worked.

Either way though, he gets both women tested in one shot.

"How about we make a deal?" Deacon suggests suddenly. "A trade."

"Для чего?"

He doesn't quite catch that, but it's not нет, so he'll assume she's asking for more information on his proposed deal.

"Three questions for three questions," he says. "Free pass to ask anything you want about me being a synth or not having a penis. Promise I won't be offended, but if I don't like your question, I can skip it and you can ask another one instead. I get the same deal with you though."

Hopefully that will get the worst of her questions out of the way. At least break the ice. He doesn't want her trying to take a peek the next time he needs to piss or ask something too loudly in public. He's worked damn hard on being able to pass as male, and he doesn't want her blowing it.

"Да," Anna agrees. "Do you need hygiene products?"

Well, shit. She already threw him with her insistence that recruits who read his code were wrong and that it was outright murder. Now she's actually asking something thoughtful? Deacon doesn't really know what to do with that, so he puts it down as her practical nature being more concerned with potential problems than idle curiosity about his genitals.

"Nope," he replies. "I got nothing on the inside to worry about. No womb, no periods, no babies."

He expects that to lead into her next question being what _does_ he have down there? Sometimes he tells people he was born with a vagina and got really horribly stabbed or something and had all that inside junk too fucked up to function. Smoothed over the scars when he got his face swaps done. But then again, sometimes he goes with penis-at-first, but then it got ripped off in some other horrible accident.

He toys with telling her the story of how coursers deliberately cut it off to try to torture information out of him. That version always gets a lot of sympathy, but he has a feeling Anna has actually been tortured before at least once in her life--possibly how she got the white chemical burn just below her eye?--and might be rightfully ticked off if she finds out that isn't true.

"Pronouns are he and him, да?"

Deacon blinks and doesn't respond at first. So is she skipping the whole synth thing entirely and saving the best for last, or ...?

"That counts as a question," he tells her.

"Mm-hmm."

"Yeah, I prefer he, him pronouns," Deacon says, deciding to go for broke. "Sometimes I'm a girl though. Not too often. Stayed that way for a whole month once, told the other agents back at HQ it had to be done for the cover. It was really nice until some of them started talking about how I really was girl and I'd finally chosen to 'go back.' Took weeks to get everyone back on the he, him pronouns again."

"Tell if pronouns change," Anna replies, then adds, "Not question."

He nods, even though she can't see him up on the bed. "Not a question. You've still got one more left."

Anna pauses for a while, and he can tell she's thinking it over. When she finally does speak, her question is in a full sentence and carefully worded.

"Do you have any special considerations I should be aware of, such as water resistance, dietary restrictions, or maintenance needs?"

Deacon gives a short laugh. "Nice job squeezing all of that in there. I'll count it as one since you're letting me borrow the snuggle-buddy."

Said buddy thumps his tail against the bed like he knows he's being talked about. Anna reaches up to rub her hand along his side, and Dogmeat basks in the attention of two people at once. Deacon uses the pause to repress any feelings that he may or may not have about all of Anna's questions being so considerate and not invasive at all.

"Yes, I am water-resistant," he answers first. "And I eat and shit like everyone else. Those inside parts are still the same. Don't have night vision or laser eyes either, which is lame and unfair."

There's a snort from below, and despite all his attempts at repression, Deacon can't help but grin at Anna's sign of amusement.

"Uh, let's see," he continues. "I also don't drink oil or anything weird. I can get by on less sleep than humans, but I still haven't figured out how to turn off my pain receptors. That would be fucking useful."

Anna makes a mild disagreeing hum. "Unless you get shot and don't realize."

He winces. "Yeah. Shit, all right, you got me there. Nothing as far as 'maintenance' goes, and stimpacks can patch up most injuries, but anything major is going to require some technical knowledge. But hey, that's why I'm not a heavy."

Anna’s answering hum is more sympathetic now. Or maybe he’s deluding himself into thinking he can decipher the meaning of her wordless noises based on slight variations of pitch and inflection.

“Your turn,” she says.

“Mmm, I think I’ll save my questions for later."

She sits up, and he makes a show of concentrating on petting Dogmeat as her gaze bores into him. He never said they had to ask the questions right away.

“Touche."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Для чего? - for what?
> 
> Прости. - Sorry.
> 
> Черт побери. - Goddammit.
> 
> ***  
>    
>  **coming up next:**
> 
> “Well, if you’re looking for a hired gun, that’s gonna run you two hundred fifty caps, nonnegotiable,” MacCready says. “You want anything else, and you’ve got the wrong guy."
> 
> Anna cocks her head as she considers him. “Longterm."
> 
> “The two-fifty is still nonnegotiable,” he immediately says. “You want some sort of hired bodyguard or whatever following you around … hmm. We split the loot, you pay for my ammo and stims."
> 
> “Split twenty-eighty."
> 
> “Fifty-fifty."
> 
> “Twenty-eighty."
> 
> “Thirty-seventy."
> 
> Anna doesn’t bother replying. Twenty-eighty is her offer and she can stay silent until he refuses or accepts it. She thinks she spots the moment when his aura sags in defeat. But then he still stays silent after that.
> 
> Spite.
> 
> She has to work not to grin. Huffy little twenty-year-old filthy boy is gonna test her on the best deal of his life purely out of spite. He keeps it up for a full three minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Kotku would have liked him.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for the implied death of a baby in reference to Anna's past, with also a faint implication of domestic abuse. then there's violence at the end when Anna kills a lot of people, but I don't really see the point in going into super graphic detail about that, so I'd say it's still just like ... T-rated action movie violence. oh, and I'm not sure if this needs a tag or can even be considered a slur, but the word twink is used. I honestly have no idea if that's offensive or a common identifier gay men don't mind using. *shrugging emoticon*

“What the fu-fricking heck, Daisy? This ain’t food! No one would want to put this in their mouth. I wouldn’t put this in any hole!"

“So sorry my carrot doesn’t live up to your standards,” Daisy’s dry voice replies. “I got an eight inch one in the back though, I swear."

Anna signs for Dog to stay back and steps into the shop quietly. Neither of the occupants notice her silent approach.

“Ah, screw you."

“I ain’t that kind of working girl, and your scrawny ass couldn’t afford me if I was."

“Is he rude?” Anna asks, announcing her presence.

“None of your god-darn busi—“

The skinny man turns around and comes eye to chest with Anna. He takes a step back and cranes his neck to look up at her. Then he sets his jaw and the yellow of his aura crackles around him like electricity.

“Business,” he spits out.

“Aw, Bobby’s all right,” Daisy tells her. “Rude and filthy and a pain in my ass, but kind of cute about it."

The small man starts like he just remembered something he forgot and started patting down his pockets. He seems to find what he’s looking and reaches inside one to draw out his middle finger.

“Scavenged this up just for you, Daisy.” He turns back around and glares up at Anna. “You mind _not_ blocking the aisle?"

Anna considers growing roots and standing there for the rest of her life. But Daisy sighs and shoots her a pleading look. Fine then. She’s not above letting go of her pride, unlike small angry boys with too much to prove. She steps aside and he storms past her.

“Bobby, hold up!” Daisy calls. “I’ll give you the carrot for five caps."

He turns around, aura still coiled tightly around himself. “I don’t need any frickin’ charity, Daisy."

“No, you were right,” she replies in that tone women have to take to ease men’s egos. “It has a spot on it here. Five caps is a fair price."

His eyes dart back over to Anna like she might say he can’t have the carrot and toss him out. She can’t help but notice the defensive curl of his aura as he slides back past her. The yellow haze barely projects farther than his skin. And he is very skinny.

But that’s not her problem.

“Have a good one,” he mumbles to Daisy after the transaction is complete.

Anna makes a point of staring hard at the assortment of scavenged junk so she doesn’t look at him as he leaves. Scrawny, defensive boy-children aren’t her problem. Especially not because she didn’t find her own little boy here.

“Where’s our favorite Mr. Potato Head this morning?” Daisy asks.

“Other business."

Anna watches the filthy boy out of the corner of her eye as he stops to pet Dog at the front of the store. His aura stiffens suddenly as he realizes he’s being watched, and he immediately stops.

“Who?” she asks Daisy.

“Robert Joseph MacCready,” the other woman answers. “Merc who specializes in sniping. Pretty crack shot, from what I hear."

Anna works hard not to react to the name. It’s just a name. He isn’t even alive anymore. He’s dead and he was dead even before the apocalypse.

She tries to find something else to focus on and notices that the boy's gun looks bigger than him. Is that carrot going to be the only thing he eats today? Daisy obviously gave him that carrot practically for free out of sympathy.

Anna takes a deep breath. Transference. She’s just transferring her feelings onto him. But that’s what the dog is for. She whistles for him, now that she knows the shop is clear of other people. Hadn’t wanted him inside if the MacCready boy had been giving Daisy problems.

“He’s not actually a kid,” Daisy continues. “Just seems that way to me. Twenty-two isn’t much of anything to an old ghoul."

Twenty-two. The same age her first baby would have been if—

Anna reaches out blindly for her dog. She might have to sit down again. Her throat feels tight and she doesn’t have the words to explain to Daisy what’s happening. Even if she did, she wouldn’t want to talk about it.

She can’t ever talk about it.

“—find you in a dump like this, MacCready.”

"I was wondering how long it would take your bloodhounds to track me down, Winlock,” the sniper replies.

Anna breathes out slowly, concentrating on the feeling of Dog’s fur between her fingers. She’s in the right now. Not the past. And right now it looks like there are a couple of assholes hanging around the front of Daisy’s store.

“Trouble?” she asks quietly. 

"… don’t tell me you’re getting rusty,” MacCready is saying.

“Nah, kid can handle himself.” Daisy still reaches below the counter and pulls out a shotgun, however. “Might keep an eye on them though."

"I’m just here to deliver a message,” the talking asshole says.

His buddy stays silent. Arms crossed in a way he probably thinks is intimidating. Anna could punch him out before he even got his arms uncrossed. The surprise would probably give her enough time to drop the other asshole too.

"In case you forgot, I left the Gunners for good,” MacCready snaps.

“Gunners?” Anna murmurs.

Daisy nods without taking her eyes off the men. “Like raiders, but organized. Biggest gang we got trouble with here in the ‘Wealth."

“—still taking jobs in the Commonwealth. That isn’t going to work for us."

“Officially, Goodneighbor is neutral grounds cause Hancock don’t stand for that gang war shit in here,” Daisy continues softly. “And he don’t send people after the Gunner’s territory. But the in between routes … well, we’ve held our own against them pretty good so far."

MacCready threatens the men. The previously silent tough-guy-asshole takes offense. Anna prepares to move in between their hissy fit and Daisy’s store. But talking-asshole seems to have some sense in his head.

"Listen up, MacCready.” His aura jabs at the smaller man a split second before he pokes his finger into MacCready’s chest. "The only reason we haven’t filled your body full of bullets is because we don’t want to start a war with Goodneighbor."

Anna tunes out the rest of the message and watches their auras. Not-talking-asshole is still itching for a fight. Filthy boy’s aura stays coiled up, but it’s the kind that might explode at any second. He asks if the assholes are done, and talking-asshole sneers that they are.

But then talking-asshole turns like he’s going to come inside the shop. Anna sees Daisy’s aura hunker down in preparation for real trouble out of the corner of her eye. She steps forward.

“Closed."

“What, a man can’t shop?” talking-asshole demands.

“You make trouble with my customers, you can fuck on off to your highway fort,” Daisy says.

“ _You_ can fuck off, bitch!” tough-guy-asshole shouts back.

“Tongue or jaw?” Anna asks.

“What?"

She turns her head to the side, eyes still locked on them, and calls back to Daisy. “Tongue can nail to door. Jaw bone makes good weapon. You want his tongue or jaw?"

“How about my dick?” he spits back.

Anna considers it, then gives an accepting shrug. “Да. Could also nail to door. Daisy?"

Talking-asshole grabs his buddy’s shoulder. “Let’s go. They’re too fucking ugly for any real fun, anyway."

Tough-guy-asshole spits on Daisy’s front step. Anna decides she can take all his teeth instead, but Daisy’s soft call of her name stops her. She stays still as they leave.

“No sense in fighting every asshole who passes through here,” Daisy says.

Anna grunts. She can absolutely fight every asshole she sees. Dog bumps his head against her hand to get her attention, then looks pointedly at MacCready with tail-wagging enthusiasm. She exhales slowly and lets it go. A fight might injure her dog and damage Daisy’s store. Just because she doesn’t mind being physically hurt doesn’t mean she can invite that on the people around her.

“I had that handled,” MacCready says.

“Was defending store, not you,” Anna replies.

His sparking aura relaxes a little. “Oh. Guess that’s all right then. Sorry ‘bout bringing those assho—those jerks here, Daisy."

“Ain’t your fault, Bobby,” she says. “You just watch your back, y’hear?'

“Yes’m,” he mutters.

Dog nudges Anna’s hand more insistently and whines. His aura strains toward the filthy boy. There’s a new person who didn’t finish petting him properly. One of these days she’s going to have to teach him that every stranger is not a friend.

“MacCready."

He pauses at the door and turns back. Anna nods her chin at him.

“How much?"

“Well, if you’re looking for a hired gun, that’s gonna run you two hundred fifty caps, nonnegotiable,” MacCready says. “You want anything else, and you’ve got the wrong guy."

Anna cocks her head as she considers him. “Longterm."

“The two-fifty is still nonnegotiable,” he immediately says. “You want some sort of hired bodyguard or whatever following you around … hmm. We split the loot, you pay for my ammo and stims."

“Split twenty-eighty."

“Fifty-fifty."

“Twenty-eighty."

“Thirty-seventy."

Anna doesn’t bother replying. Twenty-eighty is her offer and she can stay silent until he refuses or accepts it. She thinks she spots the moment when his aura sags in defeat. But then he still stays silent after that.

Spite.

She has to work not to grin. Huffy little twenty-year-old filthy boy is gonna test her on the best deal of his life purely out of spite. He keeps it up for a full three minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Kotku would have liked him.

“The two-fifty is upfront,” he finally says.

Anna raises an eyebrow at him. “You think I carry that on me?"

She actually would because she couldn’t give less of a shit about caps. Fucking stupid as a currency. No good way to transport. Inconvenient to count. Not a high quality enough metal to be worth anything on their own. All of the cons of both paper and coin money with no benefits.

Plus, she spent all she had from looting Thickett Excavations on her broadsword. Even with Deacon haggling the price down.

MacCready crosses his arms and his aura starts crackling again. “Find a way to get two-fifty to me, then I’m yours."

“Mayor offered work,” Anna says. “We do job. I see your shooting. You get paid."

“The full two-fifty?” filthy boy insists.

It’s an effort not to roll her eyes. Splitting the loot will get him enough caps to get by. Plus he’ll have ammo and stims taken care of. Two biggest expenses in the ‘waste. And then two-hundred-fifty caps on top of that to blow on what-the-fuck-ever.

And he’s still digging his heels in.

“Whatever mayor pays."

“What if he pays less?"

Anna shrugs. “You got other jobs lined up?"

MacCready narrows his eyes. “ … we split the loot on this job thirty-seventy."

Jesus Christ.

*******

Deacon lifts the ice pack from his left eye and looks at his face in the mirror. Puffy and bruised, dark purple shiners around both his eyes, and all the muscles ache. He smiles and pain shoots through his cheeks. It gets worse when he opens his mouth, dramatically gasping and raising his eyebrows. He pokes at his cheek anyway, testing the give of the skin. Still feels like human flesh.

A flash of red catches his eye. His arm hair is starting to grow back in. Dying it is a pain and leaving it gives away that he's a natural ginger. There's a large splotch of dried mud stuck in the hairs. He needs to do another full body shave, but pulling out the mud is going to be a pain in the ass, and hell. It helps cover up the hair.

“You look gorgeous as ever, darling,” Irma assures him. “My sweetie does good work."

Dr. Amari blushes and mumbles as she clears off the operating table. She did do a good job. Deacon can already tell that once the swelling goes down, he’ll look all right. Not especially handsome, but nothing’s crooked or drooping, and that’s always a goddamn blessing. He goes ahead and flexes since he already has his arm raised.

Not especially impressive.

Which is good, objectively speaking. People remember a guy with muscles, expect him to be good at fighting, keep his face in the back of their mind as a possible threat.

Deacon shoots the mirror his best unassuming grin. Nope, no tough guy here. Just another drifter, not looking for trouble, probably a little bit drunk. Not anything that would stick in someone's mind, not like Anna, with her ridiculous height and biceps. He barely came up to her shoulders.

Her ... very broad ... shoulders.

Shit. Focus.

“Thanks again, Doc,” Deacon says, tossing Amari a bag filled with the majority of the caps Dez had allotted for this mission. “I always appreciate a steady hand."

“I’d appreciate it if you’d take some Med-X and not try to talk during the procedure,” she grumbles back.

Deacon busies himself with making more faces in the mirror so he doesn’t have to answer. Being on the table isn’t too bad. Scary as shit doing it without anesthetic the first time, watching the scalpel come down, seeing flaps of his skin being lifted up and adjusted out of the corner of his eye.

But being sedated on a table … he can’t actually remember the mind-wipe. Mind- _wipes_ , maybe. That’s kind of the point. He knows it was a chair, not a table. A chair with a dozen bristling needles. That’s the only flash he can remember, but waking up from being sedated and seeing someone in a white coat leaning over him with a scalpel somehow brings it back.

“Stim this evening, stim the next morning, drink plenty of clean water in between,” Dr. Amari says when it’s clear she’s not getting an answer. “The bruising and swelling should got down in the next two days or so."

“Will do, Doc,” he replies, tearing himself away from the mirror. “And hey, pass this along to Kent for me."

Deacon takes a comic book out of his pack, all of the pages still intact and hardly any wear on the cover. He’s back into the Gunner’s top five kill list for talking his way into one of their camps and nicking this. Plus smuggling out the woman they were holding hostage for ransom, who happened to be one of the Railroad’s relocated synths.

Carrington had been against the mission. Once the synths got their new memories and a relocation, they were on their own. Dez reluctantly green lighted the mission, so long as he understood there wouldn’t be any extraction effort if something went wrong.

Worth it.

“Oh!” Irma gasps. “This one is in much better condition than the one he has now. His copy has the right ear of the cover ripped off, right ‘Mar?"

Dr. Amari hums in agreement, carefully flipping through the comic. She looks up and smiles. “Thank you, he’ll love this."

Deacon grins, despite the strain it puts on his new face. “Well, not all heroes wear capes."

***

“We got a plan, boss?” MacCready asks as they step out of the Third Rail.

Anna nods. “Да. Knock. Ask politely."

MacCready stares at her back, hurrying to match her longer strides. “For what? _Please drop dead now, thanks._ "

Anna just grunts in reply. She left Dog behind with Daisy, to be spoiled with more snuggles and treats instead of getting shot at. Deacon still hasn’t shown up. It’s just her and the filthy boy.

“And how do I know this isn’t going to end with me catching a bullet in the back?” said boy complains.

“Don’t have gun."

MacCready stops in the middle of the street. “You’re shi—kidding me, right?"

Anna pauses too and shrugs.

“You’re going to go in there without a gun?” he demands. “With—what do you have?"

“Faith in the Lord,” Anna says, completely deadpan.

His mouth drops open and he makes inarticulate noises. Deacon would have laughed. She shoves that thought aside.

“Sorry,” she mutters. “Was joke."

“I—OK, sure.” MacCready exhales slowly. “And you were joking about not having a gun too, right?"

Anna turns and walks away. It takes a few moments, but then there’s the sound of hurried footsteps as the sniper catches up with her.

“If this goes south, I’m out,” he grumbles.

“Follow lead,” Anna tells him. “Stay behind me. Will be fine."

She steps up to the door of the warehouse. There’s some sort of political coup brewing, but that’s not important. Taking out a rival gang is old hat for Anna. And the remnants of the mafia haven’t been impressing her in this brave new world. In her day, the mafia did run guns and drugs, sure. But also provided _real_ protection for the regular civilians against a corrupt police force.

These assholes are just selling chems, roughing up the working girls, and running a sloppy protection racket.

Anna starts knocking on the door. Her rhythm stays exactly even for twenty seconds … thirty … a full minute. MacCready pulls a face as the knocking goes on. She knows someone will answer the door eventually, just to make it stop.

At exactly three minutes, Anna pauses for just a half second to throw off her rhythm before knocking steadily again. Someone screams profanity inside. Stomping footsteps. She breaks her rhythm just slightly again. The footsteps speed up, then a ghoul throws the door open.

“WHAT?” he shouts.

“Привет. Я Анна."

The ghoul stares at her. “What?"

Anna sighs and repeats herself. “Hello. My name is Anna."

“Fuck off, we don’t need to hear about the goddamn Atom,” the ghoul sneers.

“Need to speak to your boss,” she says evenly.

The ghoul laughs in her face. “You some kind of fucking girl scout? You lost? We’re the goddamn mafia, lady."

Anna grins right back him, hungry as a shark. “You are stupid children playing at being mobsters."

His aura shifts down for his gun a half-second before his arm follows suit. She steps forward and pries the door open with one hand, grabbing his wrist with the other.

“ _I_ am mafia.” Anna looks him over and scoffs. “Back when mafia meant something."

“Who the fuck are you?” the ghoul growls.

“Анна."

She lets go of the door to roll her up sleeve. The ghoul’s eyes flicker over to the tattoo on her arm. Maybe he recognizes it from the old Russian prison gang tattoos. Malone’s men did. MacCready steps up to grab the door from swinging open too far.

“Might want to take this inside, boss,” he says quietly.

“Made deal with Malone,” Anna tells the ghoul. “Am willing to make deal with your boss. But can deal with Hancock instead."

The ghoul yanks his arm like he thinks he’s strong enough to break her grip. Anna keeps hold of his wrist. He lets out a wordless snarl and she squeezes until his bones grind together just to be petty. Then she lets go of her own volition and steps inside the warehouse. MacCready follows close, closing the door behind him.

“Yeah, just fucking come on in,” the ghoul says. “What kinda deal you talking about?"

Anna gives him a flat look. “You in charge?"

He doesn’t answer.

“Then take me to who is."

“You know what? Fine,” he spits out. “I’d love for a mouthy bitch like you to meet the boss. But who the fuck is this guy?"

“My bodyguard."

The ghoul stares disbelievingly between the two of them.

Anna, six-foot-two, nearly two fifty pounds. One huge slab of muscle with an almost equally enormous broadsword.

And MacCready, barely pushing five-nine and maaaybe one hundred and fifty pounds.

No one appreciates her dry humor.

“Is part of deal, да?” Anna rolls her eyes. “ _Bodyguard_. He’s a fucking favor. What, your dicks get burned off too?"

“Him?” The ghouls scoffs. “My fully attached and working dick is fatter than him."

“Yeah, well my dick is—"

“Has pouty lips.” Anna takes hold of his cheeks to cut him off and puff out his lips. “Видеть? Very pink."

“Hey, Dave, what’s going on?"

Another ghoul comes down the hallway and stops with his hand on his gun. He glares back and forth between Anna and MacCready. She hopes the filthy boy will give her one more minute of faith before he bolts. Clearing out this warehouse herself will be a chore.

“This Russian lady says she made some kind of deal with Malone and wants to deal with our boss too,” the ghoul apparently named Dave says. “And this scrawny kid is some kind of party favor."

“Why’s he got a gun?” the other ghoul asks.

MacCready pulls himself away from Anna and sneers. “Oh, I’ll just frickin’ waltz into Goodneighbor without a crapping gun like some kind of moron."

Anna shoots him a sharp look. MacCready gives it right back. But the other ghoul snaps his fingers, drawing attention away from their glaring contest.

“Hey, wait a minute,” he says. “You’re that twink who strips at the Rail sometimes. You still got your legs shaved?"

MacCready sets his jaw against a blush. Anna raises an eyebrow at him, and his aura sparks enough that it should have its own sound effect.

“Guess you’re just gonna have to find out,” he snaps back.

The other ghoul chuckles. “Yeah, he’s a real mouthy one. Spitfire, I like it. Listen, if you want to make a deal with the boss, I’ll take you up, but I’m warning you now it better be worth his time."

“Cleared out Thickett Excavations,” Anna tells him. “Traded their firepower to Malone for alliance. Could make your boss similar offer. Or maybe go to Hancock."

“Nah, don’t bother with him,” the other ghoul says. “He ain’t gonna be around much longer if you get what I mean."

“That’s barely even a euphemism,” MacCready says. “Everyone gets what you frickin’ mean. You might as well just said he’s gonna be dead soon."

“Can I call dibs on fucking his smart mouth first?” the ghoul asks.

Anna shrugs. “Да."

“Hey, wait a minute!” the first ghoul says. “I’m the one who let her in. If she has a good deal for the boss, I’ll take her up."

“Aw, don’t worry about that, Dave.” The other ghoul grins at him. “I’ll take her up, you just watch the door."

Anna steps forward to follow him up the stairs with MacCready trailing behind. The ghoul in front of them chatters on about the boss’s plans for Hancock. Another one steps out of one of the side rooms in the hallway on the second floor.

“Hey, who’s this bi—"

Anna’s knife stabs up under his jaw before he can finish. The other ghoul turns around and opens his mouth to shout, but she grabs his head and snaps his neck. She lowers his body to the ground and sign-spells out _grenade_ to MacCready.

Nothing happens.

She turns to glare at him and signs again. He shrugs. Goddammit. Deacon would have known what she—not important. Anna mouths the word to him and he finally catches on. She takes it and walks quietly over to the door at the end of the hall.

Snoring from the other side. If this isn’t the boss’s room like she expects, she supposes he’ll come out soon enough. She stops one more second to wave at MacCready to get down.

Then she pulls the pin, punches a hole in the door, and tosses it in.

Anna crouches down and waits. The grenade explodes and several people start shouting. Two more ghouls burst into the hall out of the side rooms. She catches the one closest to her by the leg and yanks him down. Stabs him through the eye while MacCready downs the other with a headshot.

Answering fire blows out the top half of the door. The bullets whiz harmlessly over Anna and MacCready’s heads. They do catch the ghoul who just reached the top of the stairs though. His body jerks and falls back down.

MacCready scores another headshot at the moron behind the remnants of the door, out of bullets and just waiting to get shot. Anna stands up and leans back against the wall. Her sniper eases over to take cover in the doorway of a cleared side room, peeking around the door frame.

Anna examines the claws of her gauntlets while she waits.

“Fucking come out and fight, you little bitch!"

She yawns. Twists her head from side to side to pop her neck.

And just twenty-eight seconds later, another mobster obligingly rushes out the door. She pushes off the wall and hits him from the side. They cross in front of the doorway and slam into the wall on the other side. His gun is jammed between his body and the wall, but he still squeezes the trigger in a panic and fires out all his bullets.

There’s more fire coming out of the doorway, but it shoots uselessly down the empty hall. Anna slams the ghoul’s head against the wall as MacCready answers it with another shot. There’s a thump as a body hits the floor.

Anna grabs the ghoul by the back of his suit jacket and hoists him up in front of her with one hand. Good old human shield. Ghoul shield. Whatever. She walks into the room, the body in front of her flinching with each bullet that hits it. These assholes also just straight up open fire on the center mass at whatever is coming at them. Anna drops the ghoul when their guns click empty.

There’s only two ghouls left standing in the room. She’d feel sorry for them if this next part wasn’t going to be so fun.

Hallways aren’t a great place for broadswords. Not enough room for a swinging weapon. But a wide open room is perfect.

Anna chops the first ghoul’s head off at the neck, with a little bonus piece of shoulder too. Then she really lines up a good swing at the next one. Straight through his side, all the way through. His body falls to the ground in two parts.

Homerun!

“Holy heckin' fuck. I mean—shit. Frick."

Anna takes out a spare rag and starts wiping the blood off her blade. MacCready recovers from his shock enough to crouch down and methodically begin stripping the still-cooling corpse. Weapons in one pile. Chems, food, and caps found in pockets in another. Armor and clothes folded neatly in the last.

Most of the guns are spray and pray automatics. Fucking sloppy. A good Калаш wouldn’t allow that. The Soviet army knew soldiers would panic and squeeze the trigger all the way back, firing off their whole clip in one big waste. Pull back the trigger on an AK-47 and you only get one shot. Have to slow down and deliberately pull it midway back for automatic fire.

MacCready stops to wipe some blood splatter off his face. "That was, I mean, I guess it was kind of cool."

His tone sounds disinterested but when Anna looks up, his aura is nearly jumping around him in excitement. She snorts at his attempt to look casual.

“Will not sell you,” she says seriously. “Was only act."

“Um, yeah. I got that,” he replies. “Guess you did a pretty good job at getting us in here too, boss. But ... we’re gonna split all this like you said, right? Seventy-thirty?"

Anna looks up to heaven for patience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Привет. Я Анна. -- Hello. I am Anna.
> 
> Видеть? -- See?
> 
> Калаш -- Russian military slang for an AK-47
> 
> ***
> 
> hey, shoutout to everyone who left a comment on this! I haven't talked about it on here, but I've mentioned on tumblr that my real life is kind of crazy right now. I haven't really had the time or social energy to reply back to people, but I really really appreciate the comments, and they help keep this fic going.
> 
> also, special shoutout to the anon who went through and left a comment on every single chapter. that made me so freaking happy, I love you! <3
> 
>  **EDIT:** also ..... I thought I posted this at 11am today. but I didn't it. I didn't post it. and then I got sad that no one commented and no one saw it, but it was me. I'm the dummy who didn't _post it!!_ so anyway. here it is


	17. A/N

hey, guys, this isn't a real chapter. sorry, I hate getting excited about updates and then not having one too, so again, sorry for doing this to you guys. I've been really sick for the last few days, so there's no update for this week :(

I'm hoping I'll get better soon and be able to put up a new chapter next week. in the meantime, thanks again for all your nice comments and sticking with this story! ily <3


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for violence yet again, because Anna is on a strict "one murder a day" schedule in Goodneighbor.
> 
> Also, Deacon tries to isolate himself to deliberately provoke Anna into leaving him behind / being mad at him, so maybe a little warning for self-destructive behavior.

Anna watches the other customers in the Third Rail closely. None of them are Deacon. She could pick his bright blue aura out of a crowd in half a second. He hasn’t shown all day.

“We waiting for someone?” MacCready asks.

“Friend."

The word feels strange in her mouth. She doesn’t make eye contact with MacCready as she says it. No one new has come in.

The sniper doesn’t ask anymore questions after that. It’s good to know that he can be quiet for all his mouthiness. Anna figures that as long as he gets paid, he won’t bother to pry into her business too much.

“We gonna ask Charlie to get paid, or what?"

But speaking of which.

Anna sighs. “Was waiting for friend. Is good haggler."

“Well, shit, so’m I,” MacCready replies.

She leans back in her chair and jerks her head toward the bar. “Take it away, two-fifty."

The filthy boy huffs at her, then stands up with his aura crackling and ready to go. The robot behind the counter has a sharp red aura of its own. Should be an interesting watch at least.

Anna tries to stay focused on the unfolding spectacle of arguments and accusations. Deacon is fine. Is a grown ass man who can take care of himself. He said he had Railroad business to take care of, and he didn’t become their best agent by getting stabbed to death in an alleyway.

He’s fine.

*******

Deacon wheezes out all of his air as the fist slams into his stomach. At least the assholes are respecting his pleas for “not the face.” He’s actually pretty grateful for that. Getting punched right after a face swap is Not Fun.

“Who took out our warehouse?"

He ignores the question and slumps back against the brick wall. That doesn’t please the two mobsters currently in the middle of roughing him up.

“Give us a fucking name!"

Deacon makes another theatrical wheeze and holds up his hands in a weak gesture of self-defense. That buys him a few seconds, the mobsters satisfied that he’s too fucked up to answer at the moment.

“It was …” He pauses to gasp for breath. “Th-the Silver Shroud. Repent now evil doers or—"

The ghoul on his right grabs his shoulders and slams him back against the wall. His head bounces off the bricks with a crack and everything goes fuzzy for a second. They’re probably still interrogating him, but their voices sound distorted and far away.

Deacon gives it his best effort nonetheless.

“It’s … John Cena."

“--the fuck is that?"

Ah, there’s his hearing again. Good to know that hadn’t shaken any wires loose. Well, then again, a few might have gotten crossed anyway because Deacon starts giggling at the thought of trying to explain who John Cena is to mobsters when all he knows about the man is you’re supposed to shout his name and hum a tune afterwards.

And actually, these guys are ghouls. Shouldn’t they know who John Cena is? Just his luck to be shaken down by culturally ignorant ghouls.

His internal lamenting is cut short however, when one of the mobster ghouls grabs him by the jaw, holding his head still as an easy punching target.

“Wai’ wai’ m’sorrah,” Deacon pleads the best he can past the ghoul’s grip.

“You gonna give us a serious fucking answer, wise guy?” the ghoul demands, releasing his grip. “‘Cause if you don’t, I’ll punch your goddamn nose all the way into your face. Gonna be con _cave_ , motherfucker."

“Is that what happened to yours?"

OK, shit. That quip wasn’t actually part of the plan, and Deacon freely admits he brought the resulting punch on himself. It still hurts badly enough to make the wheeze-and-collapse routine genuine.

“Fuck-uh.”

The word clicks at the end as blood stops up his nostrils. The pain is mostly from how sensitive his face is though, not because it was a good punch. He’d turned his head with the blow so the ghoul’s fist had only grazed his nose, but that had still been enough to burst a few blood vessels already weakened from the nose job.

And are his sunglasses sitting crooked now? They’d better not be broken.

“Ib sorry. I bent, it was Balone."

“You’re still trying to play us?"

The other ghoul grabs his shirt and cocks his arm back to punch him again.

“Balone!” Deacon repeats. “Skinny Balone."

“Hold up,” the first ghoul says, waving his partner down. “I think this asshole is trying to say Malone. That it?"

“Yeah,” Deacon gasps. “Shid. Please don’d punck be again."

“Then tell us what the fuck d’you mean it was Malone."

“Look-uh,” he says. “All I dow, is Balone bet with suh-b crazy Vault Dweller."

“Aw, what the fuck is he saying?” the second ghoul complains. “All I got out of that was ‘Vault Dweller’."

“I said not to hit by face,” Deacon whines the way any weaselly little punk would.

“All right, so Malone hooked up with a crazy Vault Dweller, huh?” first ghoul asks. “The shit’s that got to do with our warehouse?"

“He send her,” Deacon says. “Thad’s all I dow, I swear."

“Hey.” The second ghoul leans in closer to the first. “I did hear that bitch said something about Malone before she went inside."

The first ghoul nods, then turns back to Deacon. “That’s it? That’s everything you know?"

“Yes, I probiss, dat’s all."

The ghoul nods like he accepts that answer, then slams Deacon back up against the wall. He grabs the sunglasses off his face, and yep, they’re definitely broken now, because the mobster snaps them in half to make a point.

“Hey, you gotta call your socket,” the second ghoul jokes, like this is a game of pool. “Left socket or right socket."

The first ghoul cocks his arm back. “Let’s see if I can get both."

“Waid waid!” Deacon yells. “Baby I rebebber suhb-tink now."

“Jesus Christ,” the second ghoul gripes. “Need a goddamn translator."

“Shut up, moron,” his partner snaps back, lowering his fist. “He just can’t say his M’s. It ain’t that difficult to figure out. What else you got, you little molerat?"

“Der was a deal,” Deacon whimpers. “Guns or suhb-tink. Lotta firepower. An' suhb-tink ‘bout chems?"

“He’s trying to muscle in on our chem trade!"

Hook, meet Line and Sinker.

“Man, forget Hancock. If Malone just got a new line of firepower, he could take over the whole operation!"

“Hey!” the ghoul shakes Deacon. “You talk to anyone else, and I’ll break every bone in your body."

“Won’d, I probiss."

The mobster shoves him back against the wall one last time for good measure, and then the two take off. Deacon stays huddled up against the brick for a few more minutes just to be sure, then straightens up and rolls his eyes.

_Break every bone in his body._ Could their threats get anymore generic? Where was the creativity? The spark? Threats like that were just lazy.

“Ugh."

He blows blood out of his nostrils, knowing it will be gross and still curling up his lip when it splats out on the ground anyway. His nose feels tender, but still in line.

His sunglasses though.

Deacon takes a moment of silence to mourn yet another broken pair. Fallen heroes, every one of them.

But at least that little set up would keep Malone too busy to screw with Valentine again and those idiot wanna-be mobsters away from Hancock. Away from all the Railroad business the current mayor was kind enough to ignore too.

Deacon rolls his shoulders back to work out the kinks and spits out some of the blood that’s been dripping down the back of his throat. Fucking gross.

He could go back to the Rexford now. Sleep in a bed, maybe literally get some sleep instead of just curling up in the fetal position and counting down the hours until sunrise. Anna would keep watch on the door for her four hour shift. And Dogmeat was a good snuggle buddy.

But his feet head for the drifter shantytown instead.

He hadn’t lied to her too much the other night. And she’d tricked him first. She wasn’t mad at him. Wasn’t disgusted about him being a synth—a truth he would profess to be a lie at the first opportunity when she asked Dez about his recall code.

Hell, she’d asked to be sure she had his pronouns right.

Anna has done everything right, and it’s making his skin crawl. No one is that nice. And he doesn’t need another friend. He already has Glory and Tom, and that’s two too many. He has to put a cap on the madness at some point.

Maybe if he fucks around for a few days and blows her off, she’ll get mad and show what she’s really like.

*******

“Found these.” Anna lays the broken sunglasses down on Daisy’s counter. “Seen him?"

Daisy looks them over, her aura wavering with worry. “Not since the last time the two of you were in."

Dog jumps up to brace his front paws against the counter and sniff at the glasses. He drops back down with an anxious whine. Daisy has been keeping an eye on him while Anna does business around town. She’s reluctant to take him out. Every square inch of Goodneighbor is trouble, and he’s not trained for tracking scents.

The whole place smells like piss and chems anyway.

Anna taps the broken frame of the sunglasses against the counter as she thinks. She’d spotted the shades in the alleyway from the wisps of blue aura still clinging to them. But auras only tend to rub off on objects frequently touched or with sentimental value.

So unless Deacon has been running around town rubbing his sneaky little spy hands against doorknobs while thinking very hard about how special those particular doorknobs are … she’s not going to find him.

“Listen, I know it looks bad,” Daisy says. “But I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Our friend’s been running his business for a long time now. He can handle himself."

Anna isn’t unaware of MacCready slowly edging closer, pretending to examine a ceramic coffee cup for sale as he eavesdrops. It says "#4 Dad."

She could buy it and leave it in the vault next to Nate’s pod. Not the world’s greatest dad, not even in the top three. But he did contribute the sperm, so here’s a coffee cup and a bullet in the head.

When did her emotions get so messy? She feels like she’s vomiting them all over whoever happens to wander by.

Deacon isn’t Nate. MacCready isn’t Shaun.

Anna gives the shades one last tap against the counter. “Got another?"

Daisy hesitates a moment, then nods. There. He’s probably fine. She’ll just get him a spare set of sunglasses and let it go. He’ll show up when he’s ready to.

“And food.”

Anna turns and sighs when she sees MacCready still has the stupid cup. He needs to eat. She’s sure as fuck not going to cook for him, so it’s whatever he can salvage out of the “I Can’t Believe It’s Food” section.

“Go,” she tells him. “Pick food."

MacCready leaves, and Daisy sets a new pair of sunglasses on the counter. They look like policeman aviators. Deacon will love--

Not important.

“I’ll keep an eye out for him,” Daisy says lowly.

Anna nods but doesn’t reply. She and MacCready had stripped the mobsters of everything they could possibly take. Right down to the socks. They should have enough trading credit to cover any purchases they made.

Weapons and ammo went to KLE0. Got a damn good amount of caps. Especially with the sniper haggling instead of her. Anna had stood in the corner and hoped neither him or the robot woman noticed her blush. KLE0 had a very nice voice.

A _very_ nice--

MacCready jerks her out of her thoughts by setting a can of cram down. A single can.

“No."

He scowls. “C’mon, it’s only ten caps. You said to pick—"

“Food.” Anna points to the cram. “Not food. Is mystery."

“Mystery _meat_ ,” MacCready argues.

Anna turns to Daisy. “He eats mystery meat. Who allows this? Where are parents?"

“I’m fu—frickin’ twenty-two!"

“He’s twenty-two,” she continues to lament. “Eats meat from can."

Daisy laughs, waving off the glare MacCready sends her.

“What the heck d’ya want me to eat then?” he demands.

“Real meat,” Anna answers. “And vegetables. Carbs."

“What?"

“Doesn’t know what carbs are. Daisy please. Who let this boy outside?"

“Oh, screw you!"

MacCready stomps back over to the food section and uses an actual basket this time. Daisy laughs even harder when she sees him use his arm to swipe all the food off a whole shelf and into the basket. He comes back over. Slams the basket down on the counter.

“You gonna pay for all of this then?” he asks Anna.

“Will pay for—"

Dog starts barking half a second before someone outside shouts.

“Hey! MacGreedy!"

Daisy grabs his collar with one hand and her shotgun with the other. She’ll keep him safe while Anna deals with whatever this is.

It’s the two assholes from earlier. This time with three friends.

“Didn’t we tell you not to take jobs in our territory?” the first asshole demands. “Didn’t we go through this whole or- _deal_ yesterday?"

“You real proud of learning that word?” MacCready snaps back.

"Yeah, well today you're going to learn not to fuck with the Gunners," the second asshole says. "And you too, lady, for hiring him."

Anna takes out her knife. There's a moment of silence, then the first asshole starts laughing.

"Are you--holy shit," he says. "She's serious! Look, you big dumb broad, this is a _gun_ fight, see?"

He holds up his gun in demonstration and gestures to the friends he brought behind him. They grin at their own toughness and yell out agreements. Their hands rest on their guns. Not even drawn yet.

The Gunners might supposedly be better organized than raiders, but she can smell the alcohol on them from this distance. Those guys behind him probably aren't even Gunners. Anna doubts anyone higher up on whatever ranking system the Gunners use had time to approve killing MacCready between yesterday and this afternoon. These two assholes probably got drunk, got pissed they'd been scared off by a woman, and egged each other on to go back and do something about it.

"And we're going to shoot you. With our guns," he sneers at her. "Because bringing a knife to a gun fight is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of."

"Bayonet," Anna says.

His aura wavers in confusion as he tries to think that over.

_CLANG_

Blue flash. Corner of her eye. Tipped over trashcan? One of the drifters? Irrelevant for the moment. Ignored.

But this asshole doesn’t know how to prioritize and takes his eyes off her to look over at what happened. Anna doesn't give him time to look back. She yanks him forward by the front of his armor and stabs her knife through his ear. She pulls it back out and shoves him into his friends. They're all just now beginning to react. Definitely just whatever local assholes at the Third Rail who could be talked into going to kill someone for fun.

The other asshole does a bit better though. While his buddy got killed, he'd managed to sober up enough to take aim at Anna. MacCready's fist connects with his face right before he pulls the trigger on a headshot. The blow knocks him back, and the bullet whizzes past her ear instead.

With him occupied and the other three scrambling back, there's enough room for her to draw her broadsword. The most competent of the three drunk idiots finally draws his gun too.

Anna chops off his whole arm at the shoulder.

He drops with a deafening scream. Blood spurts out as his other hand scrabbles to stop the flow. The two remaining idiots have their guns raised and pointed at her at last. Either one of them could get off a headshot and kill her. If they're not too drunk to aim.

And if they miss ...

"Are you going to murder someone every day you're in my town?"

The two drunken idiots whirl around. The one on the left points his gun at the new person walking over, but his buddy pushes his arm down.

"We didn't do nothing," he immediately blurts out.

Mayor Hancock grins. "Yeah. Looks like you were on a regular Sunday stroll. That right?"

Neither of them know how to answer.

"Get the fuck out of here," he growls, all pretense at good cheer dropping.

Fahrenheit slips up as they run off. Her approach is silent, but that's the only thing subtle about her as she kicks the other asshole off of MacCready and shoots him in the head. The sniper lays panting on the ground for a half second before scrambling to his feet. Anna instinctively steps forward to move between him and Fahrenheit.

"Technically not dead," Anna says.

The mayor refocuses on her. She points to the first asshole still convulsing on the ground. The local moron missing a limb is still alive too. Certainly screaming enough to prove it.

"Not dead," she repeats. "Not murder."

Missing-limb man slumps over on the ground. His cut off whimpers indicate he's going into shock. Anna frowns at him. He could walk it off.

"You definitely killed that one though," Mayor Hancock says.

Anna nudges the first asshole with the toe of her boot. His twitches and grunting start up again. The mayor's aura recoils in disgust.

"Sick," he mutters, then holds out his hand. "Fahr?"

His bodyguard hands over her gun and he uses it to shoot the asshole in the head. Anna doesn't particularly care either way. He threatened her ... person. She's fine to let him suffer and bleed out on the street.

"Get that one down to Dr. Amari," he tells Fahrenheit. "Might be able to patch him up. Not a big deal if she can't, but--"

Barking cuts off the rest of whatever he was going to say, and Dog comes running out of the store. He jumps up on Anna, sniffing every part of her that he can reach. She crouches down so she can hold him.

"Sorry, he gave me the slip," Daisy says.

Anna focuses on calming him down. He catches sight of the men on the ground and growls at them, then barks again. He looks up at Anna and wags his tail when he's done.

"Good boy," she tells him.

"You know," MacCready huffs. "A big dog like that would have been helpful five minutes ago."

"Could have gotten hurt."

He points to his face where he'll have a black eye soon. " _I_ got hurt!"

"I'll kiss it better," Mayor Hancock volunteers. "Hey, speaking of. You still got your legs shaved?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" he asks with a scowl.

The mayor shrugs. "How much I wanna kiss you."

"You want to kiss everyone."

Anna tunes out the banter. That loud clang had come from past KLE0’s, near the Old State House. Whoever caused it would have been gone by the time Mayor Hancock came out though.

They’re gone now. Threat is over. MacCready and her dog are safe. She shouldn’t bother giving it a second thought. Just a drifter who saw trouble and knocked over a trashcan in their haste to get out of the way.

Except for the blue flash.

Anna stands up and jogs down the street. Ignores Daisy and MacCready’s shouted questions. He can’t have gotten too far. Running would attract attention. At a walking pace, he would be ...

There.

White male. Average height, average weight. Blue aura.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the abrupt ending! I figured you all would rather have an update this week with just whatever I had written, versus waiting another week while I finished up a nicer ending. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Thank you for all of the get well wishes! I'm feeling a lot better now, and my job let me make up half of the hours I missed :D


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hancock and MacCready officially get added to the party!! WHOO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for Anna dissociating again. she makes a mistake, and her brain pours gasoline on itself, takes out a lighter, and says "we gotta." she also refers to Hancock as an "it" in passing, but only because she doesn't bother to use gendered pronouns when dissociating since nothing seems real anyway, including other people.

The man Anna’s chasing pauses and turns around at the sound of her footsteps.

Everyone nearby does. When someone as big as Anna runs, people take notice. The man’s aura barely reacts to her. Only a tiny jerk in her direction. She thinks he’s trying to play it cool, but controlling your aura is difficult when you’ve never seen it and don’t know you have one.

The only thing Anna notices about his face are the bruises. Everything else drops away as her mental focus fixates on that. Someone hurt her person.

Her _friend_.

“Hey, whoa there.”

Anna ignores his protests as she stalks over to grab his chin. His hands bat uselessly against her arm. She doesn’t even register them, too focused on inspecting his injuries. There’s a scrape above his left eye where the plastic edge of his glasses cut his skin. Probably happened when someone punched him while he was wearing them. He’s lucky the lenses didn’t break. A shard of glass could have pierced his eye.

“—who the hell you are, lady."

That would sound a lot more convincing if Dog weren’t desperately trying to push through her legs to get to him. She steps back, and he nearly bowls the man over jumping up to lick his face.

“Holy shit, you got a friendly dog,” he says. “I mean, I like ’em and all, but some strangers might not. OK, all right, down boy."

Anna frowns. Strangers?

“Boss!"

She ignores MacCready. The man in front of her is Deacon. No one else has an aura like his, and it blazes blue right in front of her. Deacon. If his face is bruised, he might have a head injury too. Maybe why he doesn’t recognize her?

“Head injury?” She reaches for his face again, but he pulls back. “Do not remember? Я—"

Я Анна. And he is Deacon. The spy. That’s his codename, not his real name. Because he’s a _spy_.

And she just went and blew his cover like a complete fucking moron.

Anna takes a step back. She can feel her face start to burn, but she refuses to acknowledge it. Don’t show fear. Embarrassment. Any sign of weakness at all. Just keep breathing.

“My bad."

Even she can tell her voice has gone flatter than usual. That’s fine. As long as it doesn’t shake or choke. Breathe. Keep breathing. There’s nothing left to do but bluff her way out of this situation.

“You’re not who I thought you were,” Anna says, with all the nouns and articles included.

There. Maybe that lacked a bit of inflection, but she said the sentence the same as any perfectly normal person would. They won’t know that she’s embarrassed, that she’s stupid, that she’s scared they’re going to laugh at her because she ruined everything and who the fuck even gave her permission to speak anyway, someone as stupid as her should know better than to try to speak like a person and--

Anna takes those panicky spiral thoughts and puts them in a box. Shoves the box back to the furthest corner of her mind. Walks away from it.

The next time she inhales, everything is fine. Her chest doesn’t feel tight. She’s not in any danger of showing emotion. She doesn’t have any emotion to show.

“Boss?” MacCready asks.

Anna doesn’t recognize the yellow aura next to her. She’s aware that she knows it, but there’s no connection. Who is this aura again?

Another aura nudges at her leg and makes a whining noise. That aura is more familiar. It’s mostly hers, but it has blue mixed in. From the man who—

No. Those are thoughts she isn’t thinking about.

The thing in front of her is her dog, she remembers instead. She’s taking care of a dog. And … oh. Right. The yellow aura filthy boy. Taking him on wasn’t a logically smart decision. She made it when she was still feeling emotions. But he held his own in the fight they just had, and his sniping skills might be a tactical advantage she can utilize.

“We were interrupted,” Anna says abruptly. “From buying food. Do you still need to be fed?"

Maybe one of the advantages of taking care of a human is that it can talk and tell her whether its needs are being met. But this one just stares at her instead of replying. Is this human not functioning properly?

“Uhhh …"

A swarm of colors walks up before her human can reply. It’s very red, and then its aura is a cacophony of orange and pink and yellow on top of that. The mayor. A ghoul, “mostly” a man, calls itself Hancock.

“Anyone want to tell me what’s going on here?” Mayor Hancock asks.

“I made a mistake,” Anna freely admits, her voice still Kansas-flat without any emotion. “I thought I knew this man, but I was mistaken. Do you intend on charging me for any of the alleged murders?"

The mayor’s aura shifts uneasily at the sudden change in topic, and he takes a moment to reply. The other man steps in before he can.

“Hey, Mr. Mayor,” he says. “I don’t know what the hell all this’s about, but you’re just the ghoul I wanted to talk to. Your office open right now?"

“Sure thing,” Mayor Hancock replies slowly. “Why don’t you come inside?"

Anna turns away. If they’re leaving, it’s time for her to go too. Get out now. It’s a goddamn _fucking_ shame hot running water isn’t a thing anymore. Breakdowns are breakdowns, but a breakdown in the shower at least lets her feel clean afterward. Maybe Daisy will let her feel The Emotions upstairs if--

“Aw, you don’t have to go,” the man tells her. “Don’t see friendly pups like this too often these days. Wouldn’t mind the two of you tagging along for a bit if you’ve got business with the fine mayor too."

Anna tries to decipher that. It sounds like an invitation. Is she supposed to take it at face value He drops his attention down to Dog while she decides.

“Yeah, you’re a good boy.” He laughs when Dog bark in reply. “Oh, you know ... you’re a good boy, huh?"

Oh! That’s the passcode she told him about. She thinks it is, at least.. His pause for a moment could have just been a chance for breath between petting her very excited dog.

“Don’t worry about it,” she replies. “He likes to be petted."

The man looks up, blue eyes catching her own. “Yeah? All right then, c’mon."

Mayor Hancock snorts. “So nice of you to invite yourself to my place."

“I’ll make it well worth your while,” he says with a wink. “Mr. Mayor."

Anna waves to MacCready to follow. Her filthy boy has been quiet. Watching their interaction with sharp sniper eyes. She revises her earlier assessment of him as a charity case. So long as he can shoot straight and be quiet when she needs it, he’ll be a good asset.

The walk back over to the Old State House is short. She stays quiet too while Mayor Hancock and the “drifter” banter with each other. The ghoul guards inside nod to them as they pass.

Then the office door closes behind them and the drifter persona falls off Deacon like an old coat.

*******

Deacon leans against the arm of a chair in Hancock’s office instead of sitting in it. He knows very well the sort of debauchery that happens in this office, and the cleaning schedule the mayor keeps—which is to just chuck old furniture out when it gets too disgusting.

For himself, Hancock swaggers over to his desk, plops down in the chair, and kicks his feet up. MacCready sits on the couch without an ounce of squeamishness. As dirty as he is, perhaps it’s the couch who should be offended. Dogmeat takes one sniff and decides he’s definitely offended at one of the two, and sticks close to his owner.

But Anna stays standing, her posture stiff and tall. Hell, he’d almost call that _at attention_. At least she’s breathing again. She’d stopped after she realized she wasn’t supposed to recognize him.

Which brings Deacon to his next point—how the hell did she recognize him?

“So now that I’m taking a closer looksie,” Hancock drawls, pausing to flip over a Mentat on his tongue. “You look kinda like a guy I know. If your face wasn’t completely different. Now I know you’re not supposed to ask if people have had work done …"

Deacon barely looks at him. “It’s fine.” He stays focused on Anna, speaking mostly to her. “I’m not really undercover for anything important at the moment. Just like to stay in practice. Don’t worry about it."

Repeating the second part of the code phrase after Anna has already said it is making their code a little obvious, but he wants her to know it’s OK. He didn’t like the look she had in her eyes for a moment, like she was genuinely afraid. And then all sign of emotion and human recognition had dropped from her face between one exhale and the next.

He liked that even less.

Anna slowly slides her eyes over to look near him. Not quite at him. Definitely not making eye contact. But just enough that he can guess she’s listening.

“You know I don’t mind our good Dr. Amari getting a little side business,” Hancock says. “But if there’s anything else going on in my town, I’d like to know.” He stops to grin, all feral teeth. “Being the mayor, and all."

Deacon pulls his eyes away from Anna to shoot Hancock a placating smile. “Easy there, tiger. I’m just doing what you hired us for."

Hancock gives him a slow once over. “Don’t believe I’ve ever hired you. And … nope. Fahrenheit didn’t leave a note for mostly-sober-me, so it wasn’t while I was high either."

“But Charlie did hire her for you,” Deacon points out. “And we’re sort of a package deal at the moment, so you scored a two-for-one special."

Anna drops the battle ready stance and leans back against the doorframe. There we go. Now she knows they’re still working together. Which is ...

Too much concern to dismiss as just keeping her in the Railroad’s pocket. If it was just that, he’d wait to talk to her later instead of risking pissing off Hancock with his double-talk right now. He’d literally just decided yesterday to back off and let her stew for a while.

“Here,” she says, cutting off his internal monologue.

Anna holds out a pair of unbroken sunglasses.

Shit.

She’d been looking for him. Had run after him. Worried about him being injured. He’d tried to isolate himself, and here she was trying to reach out. Scared that he was going to slap her hand away.

Her hand holding new sunglasses that--

Deacon cuts himself off this time before his thoughts can turn too sappy. Just shoves all that shit to the side and pushes off the chair to stroll over and accept the sunglasses as casual as can be.

“Hey, just my size."

It’s a weak joke, and Deacon knows it. But it’s something to say other than "thank you," which might have stuck in his throat or, even worse, sounded _sincere_. So he tips the frames down a bit and throws a pretend smolder over them at Anna.

“Covers the bruises,” she notes.

Guess the old smolder isn’t what it used to be. Or maybe it hit Anna and bounced off her chest like bullets seem to do.

“Not to ruin this touching whatever-it-is,” Hancock says. “Seriously if you two wanna make out a little—MacCready, hop up."

“Fuck you,” MacCready immediately replies.

“Make out what?” Anna asks.

They all turn to look at her, but her face stays perfectly straight. Even Deacon honestly can’t tell if she doesn’t get it or is just messing with the mayor for fun.

She cocks her head to the side. “Make out map?"

“Faces,” Deacon says.

Her gaze slides back over to him, and she nods at his face. “Injured."

“Which is why I need someone to kiss it better,” he replies. “Robbie?”

Deacon drapes himself over the arm of the couch and grins down at MacCready.

“How about it, buddy?"

MacCready looks like he can’t decide whether to just shove him off or throw an actual punch, but Anna gives a sharp whistle before he makes a decision.

“Separate,” she tells them.

Deacon obediently hops off the arm of the couch and backs up, but not without blowing a kiss and mouthing “later” at MacCready.

Anna points at him. “Behave."

He leans back against his own chair again, all faux innocence. “Yes, ma’am."

“Wooow,” Hancock drawls. “You three are almost as entertaining as the time I took some Ultra Jet and got lost inside my coat pocket for three hours."

That could either be a serious compliment considering how much the mayor loves his habit or a scathingly dry insult, and Deacon figures it’s probably both.

“So why is MacCready here?” the mayor asks.

MacCready shrugs. “She points, I shoot."

Hancock and Deacon both wait for any other explanation, but Anna keeps up her typical silence, and her new sniper glares back at them with his lips pressed tight. Deacon can’t resist baiting him a little bit more.

“Now is that any way to greet your mayor?” he asks, then clicks his tongue. “All you’ve done is sit there."

“She hasn’t pointed yet,” MacCready snaps back.

Deacon grins and raises his hands in surrender.

Robert Joseph MacCready. Formerly a mayor himself, of that kiddie town Dez insists they don’t have the resources to help out. Did a stint with the Gunners for a while before freelancing on his own. Now the sniper’s competing with a couple of Deacon’s own fake identities for the highest spot on the Gunner’s hit list.

If Anna put a claim on him, they’re gonna be pissed. But Deacon supposes there’s no use crying over split skulls. Winlock sure as hell ain’t walking that off.

MacCready’s kind of a dick, definitely a cheap bastard, and he shoots his mouth off almost as often as his rifle.

Deacon likes him.

“You hired him?” Hancock asks Anna directly.

She only responds with a nod.

“Well, I can see how the two of you helped out with my little rat problem,” the mayor says, then looks back over to Deacon. “But what exactly did … you just want me to call you Agent, or are y’gonna give me a name?"

“Deacon."

If Hancock had eyebrows left, they would raise up. “So you’re that fellow. Seems we do know each other after all."

A couple of times that things got dicey enough with the Railroad for him to ask Hancock for help or at least give him a heads up. Twice now that he thinks Hancock made him even with a disguise. He knows better than to let the fine mayor’s reputation for chems and debauchery fool him. Hancock is sharper than the knife he keeps hidden behind his back.

And maybe a few times Deacon joined in on the debauchery. What’s a blow job or three between sort of friends?

“Yep-uh,” Deacon ends the p with a pop. “Heard about that problem you had and figured I might swing by, see what I could do. You know me, always willing to lend a helping hand."

“And what did you do?"

Deacon shoots him finger guns by way of answer.

“Cleared one warehouse,” Anna suddenly says.

But she doesn’t elaborate when she has their attention, as if the meaning of what she said was obvious, but she can’t mean he’s the one who cleared out a whole warehouse of mobsters. That was all her, maybe 10% MacCready.

“Operation like that needs more space,” she continues reluctantly. “Two more warehouses suddenly empty. I only cleared one."

Hancock looks back to him, and Deacon shrugs.

“I may have persuaded the rest to go bother Skinny Malone."

“By slamming your face into their fists?” Hancock asks.

“Someone’s gotta do it,” Deacon answers.

“Me,” Anna says. “My fists. Their faces."

“Aw, I can’t let you have all the fun,” he says.

She scowls. “Ты больно."

_You’re hurt_. Well, he caught _hurt_ and he’s pretty sure the other word was you. At the moment, he can’t remember whether she just used the formal you that means they’re strangers or the informal you that means he’s a friend.

“Я хорошо,” Deacon replies. “Seriously, it’s not so bad. You can’t even see these beautiful baby blue shiners behind my new shades. What I’d rather talk about is how the hell you recognized me."

Anna’s frown stays firmly fixed in place. “Recognize?"

“Yeah.” He waves a hand in front of his face. “Notice anything different about me?"

Her own face immediately drops to that carefully blank look, the one meant to conceal anything she might be feeling. What emotions would Anna Howard want to hide? Deacon can’t imagine her bothering to hide anger or taking offense at something. She _is_ reluctant to laugh or smile in front of other people, but he doubts he just said anything she thinks is funny.

Fear, embarrassment, nervousness. Those are emotional “weaknesses” he can definitely picture Anna keeping close to her chest.

“Haircut,” she finally guesses.

Isn’t there a running gag about this? Except opposite. It’s the wife who comes home and asks her husband if he notices anything different, and it’s obvious what she changed, but this sack of shit husband doesn’t pay attention to his wife and couldn’t care less, so he just guesses haircut.

Cue audience laughter soundtrack.

Except if Anna didn’t care, he wouldn’t be looking at her from behind a pair of fresh, unbroken sunglasses. And anyway, he’s seen her look of actual apathy. Her eyes gaze right past a person, giving her the disturbing resemblance of a lizard. This look is too focused to be her lizard-eye look. She just doesn’t seem to understand the question somehow.

“Close, but no mutfruit,” Deacon says. “I actually got a face swap. Guess it’s kind of hard to see beneath the shades and bruises, but yep. The whole thing’s different now. So. How did you know it was me?"

Anna is still staring at him, eyes narrowed like she’s trying to actually see his face. A sudden, horrible thought occurs to him. Does she have bad eyesight? Obviously not terrible, but maybe she needed glasses pre-war. Her medical record in Vault 111’s file on her was last updated after the birth of Shaun, but that was almost a year ago, and she’s almost forty.

What might have started out as only needing reading glasses on occasion could have worsened after a year of stress and parenting, and God only knew how the effects of being cryogenically frozen were manifesting in her body.

“Mud splotch.” She points to his arm. “From coming here. Average white male. Same height. Build. Caused distraction at perfect time. Tried to disappear."

“Well now that could be anyone,” Deacon snarks out of reflex.

But seriously. The mud splotch? _That’s_ what gave him away? His mental picture of Anna starts to reorder itself in his mind. Her backstory of being in the mafia explained away how she can kill anything with a heartbeat, but it was fucking stupid of him to accept that and carry on.

Mafia thugs don’t have extraction codes or use sign language or hate the military with some sort of literally undying passion.

Mafia thugs don’t know exactly how long they can walk with a broken leg, to the minute.

And mafia thugs sure as shit don’t peg someone because of a mud splotch.

Or somehow spot him through his stealth boy—he’s now certain she _did_ see him down at Thickett Excavations; stealths do give off a slight haze that can be detected if someone is trained to look for it.

Or give their dog combat training, or shrug off a literal actual fucking bullet to the chest, or automatically stand at attention when nervous, or--

“Here I thought I was a good agent.” He pauses to sigh dramatically. “But they just don’t make them like they used to, huh?"

Anna’s eyebrow twitches in response, a muted version of the _what can I say?_ shrug and head gesture. Her eyes are sharp enough that he knows she caught his call out, and she doesn’t bother defending that she’s not the remnants of some sort of agency.

“Again, not to interrupt the sexual tension here,” Hancock says.

Anna’s face tightens back into an exasperated scowl.

“But I’d like to get this shit sorted out before my one’o’clock,” he continues. “I have a very important appointment with a canister of Jet, some lotion, and … my _left_ hand. Adds some variety, y’know?"

The scowl on Anna’s face smooths back over to the blank expression, but it’s the one with the sharp eyes, not the lizard-eye look. So she’s paying close attention to Hancock now, but she doesn’t want to give away what she’s thinking. Has she figured out his sex, chems, and rock’n’roll act is exactly that?

“So.” Hancock claps his hands together, then points at Anna. “No, I’m not charging you for murder. Everyone you killed was an asshole, so you probably just saved me the trouble of doing it myself. I’d suggest you move on from here pretty soon though ‘cause you’re making the rest of the civvies nervous."

She nods without protest or complaint. Hancock points at MacCready next.

“Good on you for getting a job,” he says. “We’ll all miss you like hell down at the Rail, but if the Gunners are getting pissy over you, probably best for you to move on too. Watch your back."

“Yeah, I got it,” MacCready says with his usual amount of snark.

The leathery finger lands on Deacon next.

“And you. How come every time you pop in here, I’m not sure if I should be thanking you or punching you for meddling in my business.” Hancock cuts off his reply. “Don’t answer that. Just hit the road Jack, Benny, Deacon, whatever your name is."

Deacon throws him a mock salute. “Will do."

Hancock leans back in his chair and waves his hand to let them know they’re dismissed. Deacon’s ready to go, but Anna doesn’t budge.

“Kellog,” she says. “Mercenary."

That makes Hancock pause with his hand still in the coat pocket Deacon knows he keeps his Jet. So maybe not all of the chem act is an act. Still makes him a bit squeamish, but Hancock is a good man at the end of the day, and that’s more than Deacon’s got going for him.

“That’s not a name you should go throwing around too loudly, sister,” Hancock warns.

And the lizard-eye look makes a comeback.

“Don’t,” Anna tells him flatly.

Hancock blinks at the change. She softens a bit and looks over to Deacon, both her hands coming up to sign _sister_ to him.

“Anna would appreciate you not calling her sister,” Deacon translates for Hancock. “She prefers general."

“All right, general,” Hancock says slowly. “What business do you have with Kellog?"

“Am going to Combat Zone, Oberland Station, and Greygarden,” Anna says. “Should take week. If Kellog shows up here, tell him that."

And _that_ makes Hancock take his feet off the desk and sit up straight. “You want me … to tell Kellog where you’ll be going for the next week?"

“Да. He shows after that, tell him 103 W Forest Drive, Sanctuary Hills.” Anna holds the mayor’s incredulous gaze. “GPS coordinates are North forty-two degrees, twenty-one minutes, thirty seconds by West Zero seventy-one degrees, oh three minutes, thirty-five seconds."

“Listen, boss,” MacCready starts up. “You want to point at Gunners, frickin’ great. Point at mobsters? Sure. Heck, point at random people if you want, so long as I get paid. But the guy you’re trying to point at right now—"

“Took my baby,” Anna interrupts.

That silences the room. Hancock looks at Deacon.

“That what the Institute is up to these days?” he asks.

“We’re looking into it,” Deacon replies.

Anna however, isn’t shy about jumping right in. “Vault one-eleven. Pre-war residents of Sanctuary Hills. Cryogenically frozen. Kellog opened vault, took baby. My pod malfunctioned. I’m out, pissed, getting my baby or Kellog’s head."

That’s probably the most MacCready and Hancock have ever heard her say in one go, and it’s a lot to take in.

“You expect us to believe you’re fuc—frickin’ pre-war?” MacCready asks.

“Don’t care,” Anna says without even looking at him, her gaze fixed solely on Hancock. “Keep eye out for Kellog. Tell him."

“Tell him your personal home address,” Hancock says incredulously. “To the Institute’s main mercenary?"

Anna starts to reply, then stops and meets Deacon’s gaze, her lips ever so slightly quirked up.

“Institute got kik?” she asks him. “On twitter?"

Deacon grins back at her. “Oh sure. You wanna slide into Kellog’s DMs? ‘Meet me at Sanctuary in fifteen minutes for an ass-kicking’."

He has no idea what DMs are, but the phrase popped into his head, and it sounds right when he says it out loud. Anna also gives a snort, her version of hysterical laughter.

“I’m either too high or too sober to understand what the fuck you two are saying, but are you sure you want to fuck with the Institute?” Hancock asks.

Anna doesn’t hesitate. “Took. My. Baby."

MacCready stands up before Hancock can say anything else and crosses his arms, glaring up at Anna while he thinks.

“You really think you can take Kellog?” he finally asks. “I heard he’s pretty much half-courser at this point."

Anna shrugs. “Am statistically taller, stronger, healthier than literally anyone left alive. He’d have to be to take _me_."

MacCready’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, well I heard he can punch through steel."

Anna barks out that sound she thinks is a laugh. “Did that at twenty-three but OK."

MacCready thinks for another moment, then sighs. “Shit. Uh, shoot. Frick. All right, let’s mess with the Institute."

“You got room for one more?"

Hancock’s question manages to surprise even Deacon. Anna’s gaze shifts over to the mayor, considering him.

“I think I’ve been in here too long, wanking off in my own office,” Hancock says. “Used to be, I would have cleared out those warehouses myself. Well. Me and Fahr, at least. Now I’m hiring other people to do my dirty work. Go kill the people I don’t like. Shit."

He stops and rubs a hand over his face.

“Maybe some time out on the road, away from being the mayor might do me some good. And a fight with the biggest scariest faction this side of the ‘Wealth sounds like just the kind of stupid fucking trouble I need right now."

“Shaun is priority,” Anna says immediately. “You help find him … хорошо. Get in my way, I remove you."

Hancock stands up. “Fair enough. You ready to leave now?"

“Food and supplies. Then leave."

“Sweet, I still have time for my one’o’clock after all.” Hancock throws her a wink that bounces off of Anna just like Deacon’s smolder. “Fahrenheit can watch over this old place just fine, so let me know whenever you’re ready to leave. Just maybe uh … knock first, yeah?"

Anna makes a noncommittal hum, and Deacon tries to decipher her facial expression when there’s hardly any expression at all. Is she unimpressed? Exasperated? Both but also slightly amused by Hancock’s antics?

Shit. Is he hyper focusing again? Probably, yes. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Hyper focusing on one person’s every little reaction and emotion is hell on friendships, but absolutely necessary for being a Railroad agent.

And right now, Deacon’s not sure if Anna is his friend or his asset, and that means he already fucked up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who they're gonna pick up at the Combat Zone? hint: her name rhymes with "straight" but she hella ain't
> 
> and I didn't bother with Russian translations this time because it's all either stuff Anna has said lots before or clear through context. but if I'm wrong and missed something that needs clarifying, please let me know!


	20. A/N (again)

OK sorry for getting your hopes up, but no update today. I just got too busy and didn't have time to edit or format the chapter, so I'll try to get that done tomorrow and actually post this chapter on Monday.

also! since the upcoming chapter will tip this fic over 100k, I've decided to break it up into a series. so while this will be the last chapter in this fic, I'll start a new one that covers Anna and Deacon living in Sanctuary, rebuilding the Minutemen, and being bffs / starting a relationship (with some smut!!) all the way up to Anna finally tracking down Kellog and shooting him in the head. then another fic in the series after that where everything starts falling apart because I love that goddamn angst, and a final resolution fic where they actually take down the Institution.

edit: took down the second half of this message because there was a complaint, but the good news is that the new installment of Machine Mother will be up this weekend! it'll have more info on where you can check out my tumblr and stuff if you're interested in extra blurbs from this fic and/or some of my original writing :)


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna hears about the Combat Zone Champion and thinks "I'M GONNA WRASSLE 'EM"
> 
> or, "Cait gets added as a companion."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for violence, as usual. and referenced drug use, plus the use of stims. Anna says some fucked up stuff about deserving to die and is still hesitant to accept medical treatment. Deacon has a flashback that implies as DC-0N at the Institute, he deliberately got himself mind-wiped at least once to stop having Feelings. you can skip that when the italics start about 2/3 through. the death of a baby is discussed, but only briefly and no details on the death is given.

Anna and Cait face each other down from opposite sides of the ring. The roar of the crowd pulses like a separate heartbeat. Cait is the Combat Zone’s champion. Anna is the biggest, ugliest fuck they’ve seen in a while now.

Anna told MacCready to bet on Cait.

“All right boss, what d’you want me to do for you?” Deacon asks lowly.

She’s trusting him to hold her sword and mail shirt. It’s just her and her vault suit in the cage. Like one of those old boxing movies. Except Deacon isn’t her coach. The man who trained her--

Anna shuts that thought down. Can’t afford to get angry in a fight like this. She’d rather picture Deacon strutting around the ring, holding up the signs between rounds. Funny. But also cute?

That thought gets shut the fuck down.

“Talk to me.” Anna turns to look at him. “No touch."

Deacon salutes her from the other side of the metal fence with the hand not holding her gear. “Yes, ma’am. You wanna know about Cait? I’ve seen her fight before, can let you—"

“No,” Anna says. “Not fair."

Cait doesn’t know anything about her. And she looks pissed at getting ignored for a few seconds when Anna glances back. Her aura jumps and pulses. Reds and oranges with yellow peeking out underneath. Like fire.

Definitely high on something.

Anna rolls her shoulders. Motions for Deacon to step back. This isn’t going to be a clean and tidy fight inside the ring. The owner of the Combat Zone steps forward, grinning at the crowd. Anna tunes out his hype about the match.

Cait can’t be any older than twenty-five. She stalks back and forth in her corner of the ring. Good motion, fluid. But her steps are clunky. Needs to put the heel of her foot down first, roll forward onto her toes. Move more quickly and silently. Natural talent, no training.

Probably just good at fighting because it’s easy to kill people. It’s so, so easy to kill people when you’re that pissed off.

“—know the rules,” the owner says, pausing dramatically with his showman’s grin still in place. “Give us something good."

He steps back. There doesn’t need to be any other signal that the fight has started.

Anna and Cait both charge forward. Cait has youth and chems on her side. Anna is still half a foot taller and probably a hundred pounds heavier. The two women slam together and Anna drops to deadweight to force Cait to the ground. Cait can’t hold up against that much weight and momentum, but she uses her smaller size to twist them around.

They land with Cait on top. Anna immediately grabs Cait by the shoulders, locking her elbows to hold her at arm’s length. Wraps one leg around hers. A quick twist of Anna’s hips. And throws them back over, Anna on top.

All in about three seconds since the owner moved out of the way. The two are definitely following the one and only rule. The crowd screams as they see their champion pinned beneath the challenger.

But Anna lets her go and moves back.

Cait immediately scrambles back up to her feet. Lips pulled back over her teeth in a snarl. Her aura jumps forward then back. Can’t understand why Anna would give up her advantage like that. Finally decides to hang back for a moment, pacing again, watching.

“How you doing, boss?"

Anna grunts. Blinks. Tries to clear her head. It’s so, so easy to kill people when you’re this pissed off. Not killing is the hard part.

“The crowd’s gonna be really pissed if it looks like you threw this fight,” Deacon warns her.

She concentrates on the sound of his voice. Blue-voice. Soft swirling aura. Anna’s own aura is only purple because of her … ability. If she didn’t have that, she knows her color would default to red too. Red seeps across her aura even now, turning it nearly magenta in her peripheral vision.

“Will make it good,” she promises.

Cait’s aura lurches forward a half second before her feet follow. Anna takes that as her cue. Another mutual charge. The two crash together once more.

Anna pulls the same trick. Forces Cait down. Ends up on bottom. Slaps her palms against Cait’s shoulders. But Cait knows this move now and already has her legs pinned. Cait grips her by the shoulders too, wanting a wrestle of strength for dominance.

She might have the champion outweighed, but pure strength is where Cait’s youth and chems might win out.

Anna turns her head and bites into the flesh of Cait’s arm as hard as she can. Nearly rips out a chunk. The pain isn’t much of a distraction, with Cait riding high on Psycho. Probably barely even feels it. But Anna unlocks her elbows at the same time, no longer holding Cait back. The other woman suddenly surges forward with no resistance and now her elbows are unlocked too.

And that’s enough of a distraction for Anna to flip them over. Gives Cait one hard punch to the face, then--

Up to her feet and back to her side of the ring.

“So you heard the one about the molerat who stole a couple of energy cells and tried to start a restaurant?” Deacon asks.

Anna exhales slowly. Blue-voice. Soft swirling aura. Stay calm. Focus.

Cait has none of that calm focus. Her aura flares like gasoline on a bonfire. Anna takes another slow breath. Stays perfectly still this time as Cait rushes her. The other woman’s aura is so easy to read, it should be a children’s book.

See Cait punch. See Anna dodge. Punch, Cait, punch!

But Cait can’t get anywhere near Anna. Every move she makes is telegraphed a half second earlier by her aura, and that’s all Anna needs to stay one step ahead of her.

“Fucking fight me!” Cait finally roars.

“You want to hit me or want to win?” Anna snaps back. “Think."

Then she charges Cait. The two go down once more. This time it’s Cait who pulls Anna’s move, stopping the bigger woman from crushing her and then twisting her hips to flip them over. Cait rains down blows on Anna. One to the face, two to the ribs. Probably broke her nose. Definitely cracked one rib. Anna notes it all distantly.

Then she decides that’s enough of that. Catches Cait’s next punch and grabs her upper forearm with her other hand. Uses that leverage to turn them over again, slamming Cait down to the ground. That’s what happens when you get too focused on dealing out damage and forget to pin your opponents legs. Anna returns the favor of three punches before retreating again.

“Think!” Anna growls at her.

Cait spits blood on the stage. Green eyes angry and narrow. She rushes into the fight like the last few times. Throws another wild haymaker. Anna sidesteps it easily, but spots Cait’s aura moving halfway through. She’s going to whip her elbow out and hit Anna in the ribs. The punch was just a distraction to set Anna up for that.

Much better.

Anna lets the elbow hit her. The cracked rib snaps. She’d seen the blow coming, but she’s still surprised at how fast Cait managed to pull it off. Even if she had decided to dodge, the other woman might have clipped her.

“Good,” Anna grunts.

Cait draws up short. Blood drips out of her own nose, and she’s definitely got at least one broken rib from Anna’s earlier three punches too. None of that bothered her. But the compliment makes her hesitate.

Anna returns to her side of the ring. Focuses on her breathing again. Her chest throbs, but the pain doesn’t mean anything. All she needs to know is that the broken rib hasn’t punctured a lung. She doesn’t feel any rattle on her inhales from blood pooling in a lung, so she’s good to go.

“Yeah, it was called Rat-A-Two-E,” Deacon says.

What? Then the punch line hits her almost as hard as Cait had. Rat-a-two-e. The molerat that stole a couple of energy cells and tried to start a restaurant. Ratatouille. That rat food movie Nate’s grandma liked.

Anna holds up a finger to Cait. _One moment._ Claps a hand over her mouth to try to stifle her laughter. Shit. That really makes her chest throb.

Cait ignores the request for a pause and bull rushes her instead. Anna figures she deserves it. Anyway, she does have to make the fight look good. She puts up only a token resistance against Cait as the champion pins her up against the metal fence and starts punching. Gotta let the crowd see her get roughed up a bit since she’d made it so obvious she was only playing with Cait earlier.

The metal clangs each time Anna's back hits it. There's shouting behind her. Not just the screams of the crowd for Cait to finish her or for her to fight back. Panicked yells worried about the fence breaking. Cait hits _hard_. Only a few of the blows are smart, however. Just one hit to her kidney so far. Harder to hit from the front, but doable if Cait knew how. A calculated shot to Anna's sternum could actually put her down for a few seconds.

But this is barely a step above the brawls Anna was doing at seventeen to help Kotku make rent. A metal cage in a dingy backroom or just a circle drawn in chalk on the dirty asphalt of the alley behind the bar. Whatever assholes who wandered in, had money, and liked to see blood betting on who'd be able to walk at the end of the night.

Nothing like the training Boris put her through.

The next time Anna gets slammed back against the metal fence, she uses the bounce to press forward. The punches Cait throws don't have as much time to build momentum and she ignores them. Pushes Cait back with her advantage of sheer size. Cait retreats a few steps so Anna can't bear her back down to the ground again.

Now it's time to make it good.

Anna neatly sidesteps Cait's next punch and grabs her arm as the fist flies past her. Twists the arm up behind her back. Cait slams the heel of her foot down on top of Anna’s instep, but her boots are sturdy enough to absorb most of the blow. Anna also knows to grab a fistful of the other woman’s hair first thing so she can’t slam her head back into Anna’s already broken nose.

Instead, Anna slams Cait’s head forward, face first into the metal cage. Does it twice more while Cait flails her free elbow back into Anna’s ribs. Anna finally lets go and steps back when it feels like another one breaks.

Cait is back around and on her again in an instant. Good recovery time. But she’s got a deep cut on her forehead from the jagged edge of a broken metal link and blood in her eyes. Too pissed about getting slammed like that to think beyond another blind charge.

Anna’s fist connects solidly with her jaw and nearly sends the smaller woman flying.

Cait hits the ground and doesn’t move.

Shit. Got too into the fight. Was supposed to _lose_ , not throw a knock-out punch. Anna hesitates. Cait still isn’t moving. The crowd is going wild, and the owner starts to open the door to the cage so he can call the match.

But Cait isn’t the Combat Zone champion for nothing, and she pushes up onto her hands. Snarls at the owner. He closes the door and steps back. Anna has to hold back a grin as the other woman gets a knee underneath her. She’s so proud of Cait for taking that punch _and_ having the guts to get back up.

She’s got to make it look good though.

So Anna struts around the cage. The crowd’s reaction is instant. Anna showing off while their champion lays bloodied on the stage. Half are yelling at her to finish Cait off and the other half desperately scream for Cait to get up.

Anna lets Cait get up. Raises her arms and flexes to show the crowd she’s about to end this. Then lowers her arms and strides forward, building momentum. Twists around right in front of Cait, one leg lifting up in the sort of roundhouse kick straight out of an action movie.

Except this isn’t a movie and Cait immediately takes advantage of the split second Anna is balancing on only one leg with the other still raised in the air. Right before her foot connects with Cait’s head, the champion tackles her to the ground.

Now Cait is on top and she’s _pissed_.

Anna only bothers trying to protect her ribs. The old action movies always made it seem like a broken rib was something the hero can suck up and tough out. They never show the real life consequences of drowning in your own blood after a piece of splintered bone punctures your lung.

So her face takes most of the beating. Anna doesn’t mind. Not like she’s going to get any uglier. And the sooner Cait knocks her out, the sooner this is over with.

Just as Anna thinks that, the world goes black.

*******

“And we have our Champion!"

Tommy raises Cait’s arm up and the crowd screams for her. Deacon keeps his grip easy on Anna’s gear, but he curls and uncurls his toes inside his shoes. No one can see that tiny movement, so it doesn’t count as a tell or a stress response or him being worried. It doesn’t count as anything at all.

And then Tommy turns and gives Anna’s side a disdainful kick. She gasps and chokes, rolling over to her other side to spit out blood. Deacon wonders how mad Dez would really be if he popped a stealth and slipped into that asshole’s bedroom tonight. No one would ever be able to pin the murder on him, he knows for damn sure. Wouldn’t necessarily have to shoot him in the head either, could just take out both kneecaps. That might be fun.

Tommy draws back his leg for another kick to really get the crowd going, but Anna suddenly pushes to her feet and grabs him by the throat. The crowd’s roar falters as she bodily lifts him until his feet aren’t touching the ground anymore, her grip on his throat the only thing holding him up.

“Anna!"

Even with the crowd quieter than before, it’s unlikely she heard Deacon's single shout among all the other cries. But she tips her head to the side like she did and abruptly lets go of Tommy. Cait pushes in between the two but doesn’t start a fight. Their body language looks like they say something to each other, but Anna’s back is to him and the angle isn’t right to read Cait’s lips.

Anna turns away and slowly walks to the opening in the cage. Deacon shoves his way through the crowd to be there when she steps out.

“Hey boss,” he says with all the fake cheer he can muster. “It’s a nice night for a stroll—the radiation’s just right this evening—so let’s get you outside, huh?"

Anna’s eyes focus on him, but there isn’t much recognition in them.

“You need to lean on me, or does the no touching rule still apply?” he asks.

Her gaze clears a little, but Tommy’s security have also pushed their way through the crowd by now, guns drawn on Anna. Deacon steps in front of them.

“Whoa, whoa, boys,” he says, still grinning. “Easy now. Can’t fault a woman for coming up swinging after a fight like that. I’ve got her only weapon right here and we’re just leaving, so there’s no need for all that pointy-shooty."

The security guards grumble at that, and the asshole Deacon guesses is next in charge snaps at them to get out, but the good news is that they’ve cleared a path through the crowd. Deacon walks in front, joking about how Anna isn’t giving autographs right now as his heart pounds in his ears.

The moment they’re out the back door, Anna’s arm drapes over his shoulders. Deacon tries not to stagger under her weight, and he suspects she’s only half-leaning on him.

“All right boss, let’s get you a stim,” he says, guiding her over to sit down on a nearby rock. “How does that sound?"

Anna shakes her head. “Dog."

“OK, dog first and then stims,” Deacon insists.

“Sword."

So the dog is a priority even before her weapon. Deacon isn’t really surprised considering Anna pretty much is a weapon all on her own, but not many people would choose anyone else over a good weapon, much less a dog.

Anna stands back up on her own, only resting a hand on his shoulder for balance. She too some pretty hard knocks to the head. Neither of her ear drums are bleeding, and he thinks the blood smeared across her face and down her neck is mostly from her broken nose, not coming from any cuts above her hairline. He resists the urge to check her for a concussion and helps her get the belt and sheath buckled back around her waist instead.

When he’s done, he straightens back up and whistles while she sits back down. It doesn’t take long for Dogmeat to trot around the corner of the building, then bolt to Anna when he sees her. Hancock comes strolling out after him. Deacon figures MacCready is still collecting his winnings. He waves the ghoul over to the side and they give Anna a moment while she buries her face in Dogmeat's fur.

“Rough fight?” Hancock asks lowly.

“Fighting’s not a problem, it’s getting her to stim up afterwards,” Deacon mutters, taking back their packs from Hancock.

Hancock looks over at Anna and gives a long whistle. “She got something against chems? Fear of needles?"

“I don’t know what it is."

Deacon takes out their last two stims from his pack and slowly walks back over to Anna. He crouches down in front of her and waits until she raises her head to speak.

“Hey, I was just talking to Hancock about how you need to take some stims now, even though you don’t like it,” he tells her.

"Я хорошо."

"Anna, listen, you're not fine right now."

Hancock takes a drag off his cigarette. "Damn, that's what she calls fine?"

Anna snorts. "At Cait's age, called this Tuesday. And weekends got wilder."

Before Deacon can redirect the conversation to how she probably has several broken ribs and needs at least two stimpacks, the back door opens again and MacCready steps out with a spring in his step and no doubt caps in his pockets.

"We're gonna split all this, right?" he immediately asks.

"Goddamn, Mac," Hancock says. "She's still bleeding for fuck's sake."

"Hey, I offered to split it," MacCready protests.

"First of all," Deacon steps in. "Anna did all the work, so she gets all the caps--and you," He points at the sniper. "Have been paid enough, Mr. Two-Fifty."

"Don't care," Anna says. "Can have caps."

Deacon takes a deep breath. "Those caps are yours. You don't have to keep throwing money at him."

Anna scowls right back at him. "Use caps for what? Can hunt. Farm. Make clothes and build house. Can provide for my own damn self."

"But boss--"

"Found filthy trash boy in dumpster fair and square," Anna interrupts. "Am keeping."

"You know what? OK." Deacon plasters a smile back on his face. "You shower him with caps if you want. Make it hail. Right after you take both of these stimpacks."

"Half."

Deacon has to shut his eyes on the next inhale. When he opens them, Anna is still sitting on the rock, not even glaring. That would mean they're fighting about this. And they're not. She has factually informed him that she will only take half a stim. Dogmeat looks at him and thumps his tail, unaware of the silent battle of wills.

"She's just gonna stare you down, man," MacCready says. "Trust me."

"Haha, no." Deacon snaps back, then makes another appeal. "Anna, please. You have broken ribs, probably a broken nose, hell, maybe even a concussion. One full stimpack isn't enough to cover all that, let alone half."

"Know what we did with wounds in my day?" Anna asks him.

Deacon sighs. "You rubbed dirt on them? Uphill? Both ways?"

"Prayed to the Lord," she replies. "And if you weren't healed, it was because you didn't believe hard enough or had sinned and deserved to suffer and die."

Deacon sees MacCready and Hancock both blink at that, and he's pretty shocked too. Any other time, he would have brushed that off as her own unique brand of dark and dry sarcasm, but that sentence had been clear English, her accent dropping for a moment in sincerity. Anna must realize how she sounded too, because she takes a breath and looks away.

"One."

It's progress, but Deacon still has to resist the urge to bang his head against the nearest wall. One full stimpack is half of what Anna needs at minimum to get her healed up.

But the back door slams open before he can make a reply, and none other than the champion herself storms out.

"Ye feckin' threw that fight!" Cait yells at Anna, her accent thicker with anger.

To their credit, Hancock and MacCready immediately have their guns drawn on either side of her. Cait's tough, but even she's not going to survive point blank shots from a shotgun and a sniper rifle. She just doesn't seem to care.

"Anna is injured," Deacon says, once again stepping between his boss and a new threat. "Let me give her a stim first."

"Yeah, all right," Cait mutters, calming down some as she rubs her arm.

She looks like she's already had a shot of something herself. If she seemed eager to fight before, now she's practically bouncing on her feet. Anna stays seated on her rock like it's a throne, unconcerned by this new challenge. Deacon hopes it's because she held back before and knows she can beat Cait a second time.

"Hey, buddy, I gotta get at Anna now," Deacon tells Dogmeat softly as he kneels beside them.

Anna gives him the signal to back up, but he takes that to mean "go investigate the new person who will surely love and pet you."

"No!" Deacon yells.

Dogmeat slides to a stop in front of Cait, then turns and looks pleadingly back at him.

"No," he repeats sternly.

Dogmeat ignores him and looks at Anna instead to see if Mom will say yes. Anna shakes her head and whistles for him to lay down. Dog drops with a disgruntled huff, head between his paws as he stares up at Cait with baleful eyes. He knows she'll pet him if his mean parents would just let him lick her.

"The fuck is that?" Cait asks.

Anna finally deigns to look at her. "Dog."

Cait scoffs. "That ain't a dog. S'got fur. And it's tiny."

"That's what they look like." Deacon flicks the side of the stim. "Without all the rads and monstrous mutations."

Cait mutters something else, but Deacon isn't paying attention. The best place to give Anna the stim would be right in her side to make sure it fixes up her ribs. But her vault suit is all one piece, and the only way to expose her side is to unzip the whole front.

"How you wanna do this, boss?" Deacon asks softly.

Anna looks over at Hancock and MacCready.

"Oh, is it time for us to be gentleman?" Hancock asks. "Mac, if you need to avert your eyes somewhere, I officially give you permission to ogle me." He shifts the shotgun over to one hand so he can run the other down the non-existent curve of his hip. "That's right, take it all in."

"Fu--Frick off," MacCready snaps back. "I'm prettier'n you anyway."

"You're both shite ugly," Cait replies.

Deacon can't help but snicker, and Cait turns her glare on him next.

"The fuck're you laughing at?" she growls. "You look like an egg fucked a potato."

Anna starts to bark out a laugh, but she has to cut it off halfway through when it pulls at her ribs. She grunts, sounding more frustrated than in pain. Which would be good, except Deacon is pretty sure she doesn't process pain at all and may not even know how badly injured she really is.

"All right boys, hands at your sides, eyes straight ahead, and no commentary," Deacon says.

Hancock and MacCready decide that means staring contest with each other, but at least it gets Anna to undo her zipper. She hasn't bothered with a bra underneath. Good for her. Barbara always thought they were super uncomfortable, but she liked the way she looked in--

Deacon shuts down every part of his brain not currently working on sliding the needle of the stimpack into Anna's side. He is not going to be thinking about his dead wife in lingerie while looking at his best friend's bruised to hell and back chest.

And whoa, shit. That was a weird thought too. Best what? Best big angry person to stand behind in a fight. Hell, he'll even admit to best partner considering he hasn't had any others. Yeah, that's what he meant. Best partner.

"OK, there we go," Deacon says once the stim is done. "Now if you'll hold on just a second--"

He reaches for the other stim, but Anna cuts him off.

"No."

He sighs. "You're killing me, bigs."

"Smalls," she corrects.

"But you're big," he points out. "Would you prefer I call you talls? Strongs? Stubborn?"

Anna snorts. "Sass mouth."

"If yer done flirting," Cait interrupts. "Rematch. Now."

"Not flirting." Anna stands up. "Didn't make one comment about better use for mouth."

Cait sneers. "Lotsa men think they can eat cunt, then get down there and fecking draw the alphabet or some shite."

Anna nods sympathetically. "Would kick in head. But meant cry-begging." She pauses and glances back at Deacon, giving him a once over before shrugging. "Eh. He might do better."

Deacon grins and shoots her finger guns, his default response to pretty much anything, while he internally tries to figure out what the fuck just happened. OK, so maybe he's had a midnight thought or sixteen about Anna topping him until he cries, but shit. Who wouldn't? He doesn't think he was obvious about it, either. Has she been thinking about it?

"I can--" Hancock starts to say, but Cait and Anna both shut him down at the same time.

"Don't give a shite."

"Did not ask."

Hancock shuts his mouth and mimes locking it with a key. Anna and Cait return to staring at each other.

"So, re--"

Anna doesn't bother waiting for Cait to finish speaking, just charges straight at her. Cait still manages to get her arms up in time to block Anna's punch--technically. Deacon does see Anna's fist connect with Cait's forearm instead of her face, but it hardly does anything to stop the blow and instead ends with Cait's own arm and fist smacking into her head like some kind of sick parody of "stop hitting yourself."

Hancock and MacCready jump back with a couple of epithets and exclamations, and Dogmeat adds to the chaos by barking as Anna and Cait slam into the ground. There's a brief struggle that moves too quick for Deacon to really follow. He's never been a hand to hand combat type of guy, and he sure as shit makes a deliberate effort to avoid down and dirty brawls. Why even bother with all that when he can just pop a stealth and shoot someone in the back of the head?

It seems a lot less painful for everyone involved compared to what Anna and Cait are doing to each other. He hears a bone snap and he thinks it's one of Cait's, but he can't be sure as they roll around in the dirt. Anna definitely held back before, because now she's using her size to full advantage and her teeth almost as much as her fists.

Cait lasts about five minutes, and probably only that long because she just hit up. Not that she didn't give back nearly as good as she got, but once Anna got her well and pinned, there was nothing she could do to move that solid fucking mountain of muscle.

Anna methodically yanks her shoulder out of alignment and when Cait ignores that, she breaks the arm. She's got Cait pinned on her stomach with the other arm twisted back around behind her back, and the smaller woman's flailing legs can't do much of anything useful in that position, especially not with Anna's knee pressed into the small of her back.

And Cait still struggles, bucking with her whole body from sheer rage and force of will. Anna calmly waits it out, even when Cait starts screaming. Deacon grits his teeth. Not only is all the noise going to draw attention to the fact that they haven't moved on like he promised the security guards, he's heard this type of screaming before at the In--

_I don't care what's causing it, just fix the goddamn screaming virus! It's infected another three synths this week, and I don't want my companion catching it too._

_Something drops. Glass shatters. Another synth starts screaming in the middle of its work. No reason no reason no reason. The coursers come. They're going to take it away to--_

_\--_

_\--_

_The chair. The chair chair chair! So many needles but not scary it's like home. The chair will make you forget this life, that you have feelings you're malfunctioning you can never be a real person, the chair will make you forget if you can just get them to put you back in the chair--_

"Done?"

Deacon takes a deep breath and sees Anna and Cait on the ground again. She's not screaming anymore. No one's screaming. It's all right now, the virus didn't get him. And he knows it's not a virus, that's not what this is, but he's been repressing his feelings for over sixty years now and he's not going to stop today. So all of that gets shoved into the basement of his mind and the door firmly shut again.

"Are you done?" Anna asks more slowly when Cait doesn't answer the first time.

Cait nods. Anna eases her knee off and loosens her grip. Cait immediately scrambles up, not even bothering to get fully to her feet before launching herself at Anna with fists and teeth.

She gets slammed back down into the dirt, this time on her back with Anna's hand wrapped around her throat. Anna's free hand pins her arm that's still working, and she sits on Cait's hips, pinning down her legs too.

"Boss?"

Anna doesn't seem to hear. Cait starts to gasp for air.

"Anna, you need to let go."

Still no response. Shit. It's his job to talk to her. She knew she might get like this, and she asked him to keep talking to her, keep her focused. But she either can't hear him, isn't processing what he says, or honestly isn't even aware he exists right now.

Hancock catches his eye and silently motions to Dogmeat, still laying in the exact position she told him to. But touching Anna right now is a bad, bad idea. She's definitely going to come up swinging at whatever gets too close, and Deacon doesn't think she could psychologically handle knowing that she killed her own dog by accident.

Which leaves him.

"Please don't kill me for this," Deacon mumbles under his breath.

The only response he gets is the sound of Cait choking. Hancock might try to shoot Anna to get her off of Cait, and then get them all killed. MacCready isn't going to do shit that puts his ass on the line. Not that Deacon can blame him for being smart.

So he slips off one sneaker and throws it at Anna.

The shoe hits the side of her arm and bounces off. Anna's head immediately snaps up and if Deacon hadn't tangled with coursers before, he might have done something embarrassing and bowel related at the intense emptiness in her eyes. Is there a plan B? At this point, Deacon would take M or even one of the weird letters like Q.

Dogmeat barks. He still hasn't disobeyed his order to lay down, but he whines and wriggles a bit, clearly aware that something is wrong.

Anna immediately lets go of Cait and crab walks back away from her. Cait hacks again and sucks in a deep breath.

“I—“ Cait coughs again. “I want … whatever she’s on."

Deacon feels his lips twitch into a wry smirk. Looks like she’s hitting her twenties almost as hard as he did. As much as a synth born as a fully formed adult can have “twenties."

Anna doesn’t speak, but she looks up and actually makes eye contact with him. She lifts one hand and sign-spells _mental illness_. Is she letting him know she just dissociated again? Because it was pretty obvious. She points to Cait, then to him, and taps her mouth.

A reply! She wants him to speak for her.

“She says the only thing she’s on is mental illness,” Deacon tells the group.

Hancock laughs and even MacCready relaxes enough to give a snort. Dogmeat sits up now and barks again. Anna hesitates, thinks about it for a moment, then reaches out her hand for him. He bolts over and instantly cuddles up to her side.

“You win.” Cait pushes up to her feet with a wince, protectively holding her broken arm to her chest. “What’d’ya want me out here for?"

Anna looks back over at Deacon and jerks her head toward the other woman. “Stim."

And it clicks. She didn’t take the second stim because she knew Cait would need it.

“Hey,” Deacon says to Cait, drawing her attention by waving the stimpack.

Cait’s eyes narrow. “Ain’t that a stim?"

“You got it,” he says. “One thousand points to you. They’re imaginary points and no prizes will be awarded at the end of the show, but you do get this stimpack right now."

Cait looks even more suspicious, bordering on disgusted. “Why?"

Deacon points to Anna. “Because she said so, and she’s the boss."

“Toss it ‘ere,” Cait demands.

Anna already almost killed her, and she’s got Hancock and MacCready flanked at her back. If they wanted to kill her, Deacon walking over to her first wouldn’t make a difference. He still keeps his distance and tosses the stim to her as a show of good faith. Cait deftly catches it with her good hand and immediately jams the needle into the crook of her elbow on her broken arm.

“Smoke break,” Anna says while Cait uses the stim.

She jerks her head over at Hancock and MacCready. Hancock is obviously already smoking.

“You mind taking your smoke somewhere else for a few minutes?” Deacon asks.

Hancock shrugs with a smirk. “Been needing my own special smoke break for a bit anyway."

He walks over, hand already reaching into his pocket for some Jet. MacCready crosses his arms and doesn’t budge.

“We are splitting this though, right?” he asks again.

Anna nods. “Да. Go."

Deacon turns to follow after MacCready, but Anna presses a hand against his stomach, stopping him in his tracks. He tries not to think about how her one hand covers nearly his entire stomach.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll hang around,” he says. “Been smoking too much anyway."

He takes a step back, the heat of her palm still warm against his skin even through his shirt. Cait is done taking in the stim now, and she already looks better. Needs some of the blood and dirt cleaned off her face, but her nose is sitting right again. She crosses her arms defensively across her chest.

“Information,” Anna speaks again.

“What, you want me to snitch ‘bout something?” Cait asks.

“Baby,” Anna says. “Came through here. Want."

“Yeah, well, it’s already gone,” Cait says bluntly.

“Where?"

“Dead."

Anna is silent. The tension in the air is Not Good. This isn’t the revelation she needed after just coming out of another episode.

“Do you remember what color the baby’s eyes were?” Deacon asks.

Cait scoffs. “The fuck does that matter?”

“We’re looking for a specific baby,” he explains. “If you can tell us what eye color this one had, we might be able to figure out if that’s what we were looking for."

“Specific baby,” She echoes. “What kind of shite is that?"

“My baby,” Anna says. “Taken."

“Oh.” Cait frowns and rubs at her arm again. “You … want it back?"

“Mhmm."

“Why?"

“I love him."

Deacon doesn’t dare speak in the silence. Anna drops her head back down and focuses on petting Dogmeat again.

“Um, dark,” Cait mutters. “Not like, bright or nothing. Not blue. Probably not green, I guess."

Anna nods. “Brown."

Deacon swallows hard. Shit. He’d hoped—but since when had the universe not smashed his hopes into tiny little dead baby pieces in front of him? Shit shit shit. Should he be comforting her or backing away slowly?

“Could it talk?” Cait blurts out. “Your uh, thing. Baby."

“Mama,” Anna says. “Juice. Well, juss. Cobs. No. Not much more. No walking, but could stand a bit."

“Oh, yeah, then that baby wasn’t yours,” Cait replies. “It was one of those real little ones, like when they can’t even hold their big dumb heads up."

So good news then. Not for that other baby. it’s still dead, but at least now it’s some other person’s dead baby and Deacon never has to think about it again.

Anna stands up. “Come with me."

“Where?"

“My settlement,” Anna tells her. “Will train you. Give food, water, shelter."

Cait snorts in disbelief. “Yeah? It at the end o’ a rainbow? Feckin’ little people dancing around, just sharing food and caps with everyone?"

Anna gestures to him, and Deacon takes that as his cue to do the talking thing.

“Anna is the General of the Commonwealth Minutemen,” he says.

“I caught that when Tommy said it in the cage,” Cait snaps. “Not setting a great example, slumming it down here."

“Looking for her missing son,” Deacon corrects. “She has a settlement up north named Sanctuary. It’s already got a few settlers plus power and water going, but she’s looking for more people."

“Gonna bring me back then?” Cait challenges. “Some trash junkie to parade as your pity-charity case?"

“Get over yourself,” Anna growls, to Deacon's surprise. “Don’t have emotional capacity to waste on pity. Not on you. Am hogging all pity for myself."

Deacon raises his eyebrow at her over the edges of his shades, and she shrugs.

“She can fight back,” Anna says. “Could not even fathom concept of hitting back until … sixteen? Barely. Eighteen. Did not even know I was person. She can fuck off thinking I’d feel sorry for her."

Cait actually laughs at that. “Aye, fuck you too. So. Why’d’ya want me?'

Anna lets out a breath. “Sparring partner. Only so many raiders and assholes to kill. Need outlet. You can keep up. Will train to do better."

Cait thinks it over, still absently rubbing the inside of her elbow. “Yeah, all right. If Tommy wants me back, he can come get me."

Anna nods. “Let’s go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all right, so you might have noticed that Machine Mother is now marked "complete" but don't panic! this monstrosity is already at 100k, so I'm breaking it up into four pieces. I'm going to take a break for a month so I can work on some of my original writing and get a Patreon account set up, but then I'll come back and start a new fic in this series that will cover Anna rebuilding Sanctuary, actually falling in love with Deacon, spanking his needy sub ass ... all the good parts!
> 
> thank you so so much to everyone who left a comment! I know there's a lot of people I never replied to, but I read them all and really appreciate them :)

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who believed Deacon when he said he was a synth? T-T
> 
> So yeah, Deacon doesn't have a penis. I think he qualifies as trans because he identifies as male even though the Institute made it very clear he isn't allowed to have a gender at all, so technically he's identifies as a gender other than what he was assigned at "birth." He also experiences pretty bad dysphoria throughout the fic, and all the other fallout characters think he's an AFAB trans man. I don't want to tag him as agender because that would be misgendering him based on his lack of genitals exactly how the Institute did, but I'm still kind of hesitant on whether I'm allowed to tag him as a trans character.
> 
> Anna is the asexual character as mentioned, and she's also touch repulsed. She becomes nonverbal in situations that are stressful for her, dissociates frequently, and has difficulty empathizing. She likes reading instruction manuals, memorizing ancient history facts, and listening to repetitive sounds. Since mental health care is shit today, I'm assuming in the dystopian 50s values pre-war society of fallout, it was even worse. So she was never diagnosed as autistic and doesn't self-identify that way because of it, but she matches a lot of the symptoms and can definitely be read that way.
> 
> I’ll try to update on Saturdays, but this is my last semester of college, so I may get busy with graduation. Comments are inspiration and encouragement though!


End file.
